Invertebrate Biodiversity in Orielton

It is impossible to not be impressed by the visual results we uncovered during one day of our University field course in Orielton. We spent a short period of the day using a leaf blower (on its reversed setting) and a muslin sack to sample metre-squared grids of grass of different heights. At the time, it seemed like a pointless exercise, seemingly retrieving nothing but dead grass, dust and soil. However, after hours of carefully tweezing apart the contents of the sacks, an absolutely incredible array of invertebrate life was revealed under the microscope. An array of springtails, flies and beetles were discovered of many different sizes and colours. The visual diversity displayed in the photos (shot with an iPhone looking down a microscope) is a simple but striking way of indicating the biological diversity present in our meadows: a reminder of the beauty of the invertebrate natural world that is often overlooked.