Trainer: Kochetova Olga (Russia)

Olga graduated from the Lomonosov Moscow State University in 2008. Now she is a postgraduate at the same university.
Major subject of her research is Zoology: Rove beetles (Coleoptera, Staphylinidae) associated with Fungi. Olga's research area is very wide: Environment, entomology, mycology, ornithology, species (fungus insect) interactions, dead wood, ecology, Staphylinidae associated with fungi, saproxylic insects, insect fungivory (mycophagy), taxonomy of Staphylinidae, boreal and montane ecosystems, succession, host selection and preferences Olga is working as a teacher at Russian Medical State University. Also she works as a free lance photographer. She worked as a photographer in biological children's camp semu Uchit More in 2007 year. During the period 2001 - 2004 she worked as a teacher in Young Naturalists Club of Zoological Museum, Moscow State University. She took part in over 30 expeditions and collecting trips. Her hobbies are tourism, extreme sports, dancing, drawing and photography.

Title of the Project: World through the Eyes of Insects. 

Base organization: M. V. Lomonosov Moscow State University

Level: The optimum age of the participants of the project is 13 - 17 years old. No background skills required. Students should be prepared for long walks. 

Vision plays an important role in the life of insects. They can see movements and colors much better than we do – the can even see in the ultraviolet range. Different species see perceive colors differntly, but in general, most insects easily distinguish not only the rays of the spectrum visible to humans, but also ultraviolet rays. For example, compound eyes of bees perceive  the color, which seemed red to us as blue. A bee sees the most common red poppy as a set of concentric circles, and to a human eye it is uniformly red.

The main goal of the project is to find a specific link between colors of objects surrounding  insects, and the biology of the most common species of insects
.
The key tasks of our research are:
  to find the specific features of flower and plant colors in the UV
 to study the color of mushrooms in the UV (wood fungi and others)
  to identify the features of coloration of different structures and the overall color of the most common species of insects in the UV
 Draw conclusions on the relationship of color of  flowers, fungi and insects in the UV with the biology of these organisms

Methodology of the project:
- Photographing  flowers, fungi, insects in the UV light in the field and laboratory conditions
- A sketch and description of the structural features and color
- Review of the literature on the subject
- To identify correlations between the characteristics of the object’s color and the behavior of insects

Work plan: The students will learn to distinguish species of insects, the most common plants and mushrooms. They will acquire the skills of field work, and learn a lot of interesting things about other inhabitants of the forest we might meet on the routes. In addition, the students will learn the basics of photography, as well as the methods of data processing. Thus, field work will be combined with laboratory work, as well as with the mathematical analysis of data, which will make this interesting project highly scientific as well.

 At the end of the project there will be a photography contest between the participants in different nominations.