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 Mozzwear system in the passive monitoring of Asian hornets in Jersey (in collaboration with the Government of Jersey), where they are now established, and around bee hives in the UK (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 to develop the flight tone model.
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. By recording lab-cultured and wild mosquitoes in the UK and Spain, we will expand the dataset already collected in the HumBug I project to further develop the app with an embedded machine learning model to detect the presence of mosquitoes. Specimens of Ae.albopictus from European locations with the closest transport links to the UK will be collected and recorded. We will also work closely with researchers at the Mosquito Control Service of Baix Llobregat, a municipal mosquito control agency in Barcelona, Spain, to help demonstrate how monitoring data can be more efficiently collected, analysed and visualised.
