Humbug II invasive insects
Asian hornet
The Asian hornet (Vespa vetulina) was listed as a species of special concern in the UK in August 2016. Although not
especially aggressive to humans, it is a highly efficient predator of pollinating insects including honey bees. With many bees already in decline, any additional pressure could be catastrophic. We will explore the usage of the system in passive monitoring of the Asian hornets in Jersey, where the Asian hornet is now established, and from UK bee hives in collaboration with the British Beekeepers Association. We will record Asian hornet flight tones, develop a dataset, and utilise the crowdsourcing platform for labelling and machine learning training.
Asian tiger mosquito
The Asian tiger mosquito, Aedes albopictus, is listed as one of the top 100 invasive species by the Invasive Species Specialist Group. Using the dataset already collected in the HumBug I project, we will deploy the developed app with an embedded machine learning model to detect mosquito presence and further collect and record specimens of Ae.albopictus from European locations with the closest transport links to the UK. We will work closely with researchers at Mosquito Control Service of Baix Llobregat, a municipal mosquito control agency in Barcelona, Spain, to demonstrate how monitoring data can be more efficiently collected, analysed and visualised.
