Hundreds of insects captured by Australian students are headed to Canada for DNA barcoding, as part of a quest to discover new species.
Scientists enlisted the help of 50 schools in Queensland, South Australia and Western Australia as part of the Insect Investigators citizen science project.
Over four weeks, the students set tent-like malaise traps on their school grounds to capture as many insects as possible.
Queensland school liaison officer and research fellow with the University of the Sunshine Coast Andy Howe said it was "amazing" to work with the students.
"We are looking at insect biodiversity across Australia," Dr Howe said.
"We're trying to look for undescribed species and trying to work out more about where insects are distributed in Australia."
Less than 30 per cent of native insects are named and described in Australia.
High chance of discovering undescribed species
Students from Gin Gin High School, west of Bundaberg, found 170 different types of insects.
"We can put a name to 33 of those already based on existing DNA barcodes," Dr Howe said.
"There are 137 that we haven't been able to name at this stage."
Dr Howe said there was "a really good chance" that some of those species were unknown and unnamed.
"There's probably 70 per cent of those 137 that would be undescribed, based on the existing estimates we have," he said.
The insects collected by the participating schools have been sent to the South Australian Museum and the University of Adelaide.
There, researchers will choose specimens to send to the Centre for Biodiversity Genomics in Canada for DNA barcoding.
What's in a name
Dr Howe said the scientific community did not know much about Australian insects, so finding new species was not surprising.
"We expected that we would be able to describe new species, exactly how many, we're not sure at this stage," he said.
"It's not over yet – so the kids are going to be part of naming these undescribed species."
Senior Agricultural Science head of department at Gin Gin High School Karyn Goodman said it was "exciting".
"We have discovered we have a stack of species of insects that are as yet undiscovered in our school grounds," she said.
"Two thirds of what we caught, no other school in Australia had actually caught."
Ms Goodman said it was now a waiting game for the students.
"The first round of data has come out saying, 'These are the ones [that are] not in our database'," she said.
"So now they have to go deeper and look into other information centres around the world to see if they can find descriptions of the species that match the descriptions of ours."
Budding scientists
Dr Howe said the project was a great opportunity to spark students' curiosity and interest in science.
"Part of what we're trying to do is inspire kids to pursue careers in entomology and in ecology and in nature management," he said.
"To give them this feeling of being real researchers – which we see them as – they're contributing to real science."
