Meet the Scientist

Name: Alfred F. Newton
Position/Title: Associate Curator
Department: Zoology

1. What do you study related to biodiversity (what are your research questions, what organisms do you work on)?

I am interested especially in the discovery, classification, natural history, distribution and evolution of one very large group of beetles, including rove beetles (family Staphylinidae), carrion beetles (Silphidae), round fungus beetles (Leiodidae) and related families. These include about 58,000 named species, or more than all vertebrate species combined, but we think that several times this many species remain to be discovered and named. Nearly 500 new species are discovered and named each year, by the several dozen scientists in the world who work on this group.

2. How do you study biodiversity (for example, what technological tools and methodologies do you use in your research)?

I collaborate with others on field surveys in parts of the world that are still poorly explored for small insects, using special collecting techniques such as flight intercept traps, carrion-baited ground traps, and Berlese funnels to sample insects flying over and hiding in forest floor leaf debris and soil, plus direct searching for them on fungi, under bark, along stream banks and in similar places.

Samples are then sorted, prepared for study (many specimens are pinned or dissected on microscope slides), and studied with optical or electron microscopes to identify them and analyze how they might be related to one another. New species or higher-level groupings are described (named) when possible, usually in publications that also review other known species and attempt to understand the biology, distribution patterns and relationships of the species.

3. Where do you study biodiversity?

I focus especially on the faunas of southern hemisphere temperate forests in Chile, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa, but also work locally in Illinois, and in the past have done much field work in Mexico and other tropical Latin American countries. A special interest is biological connections between these southern temperate regions, which in some groups of rove beetles seems to be a result of the breakup of an ancient supercontinent "Pangea" starting more than 150 million years ago.

4. How might your research have implications for biological conservation?

Most directly, my research may help identify species that are disappearing, or have very restricted distributions in habitats that are threatened with destruction (such as the clearing of forests). It may also help identify areas of unusually high diversity, that are worthy of special study by others on other groups of animals or plants, and worthy of long-term habitat protection. Indirectly, the identification guides, catalogs and other resources that are often byproducts of my research may help others to conduct local surveys using this group of beetles in various ways to promote conservation.

5. How did you become interested in science? What made you want to be a scientist, and how did you get to The Field Museum?

I like searching for and discovering new things. Becoming a biologist and focusing on poorly known groups of insects seemed like (and is) an ideal way to do this. I came to The Field Museum because it has the world's largest collection of rove beetles, plus all the other resources needed to succeed in such studies, including a scientific environment and administration that encourages this work.

6. Describe important collaborations for your scientific endeavors (describe your work with other researchers, organizations, or scientific groups, local or indigenous peoples, etc.)

I collaborate with scientists worldwide who are also dedicated to the study of rove beetles and related groups of beetles. This has included publishing papers with about 25 other scientists from nine countries, assisting students and other researchers with visits to Field Museum and loans of specimens from our collections, and collaborating with national collections or universities and individual scientists in those countries where I do field work to improve their collections and help train new scientists interested in these beetles.

Two recent products of such collaborations include identification guides to the rove beetles of North America and Mexico (the latter in Spanish). Currently I am part of a U. S. National Science Foundation "PEET" project based at Field Museum that includes a combination of field work, training of new scientists, and production of published studies and web sites, all designed to promote study of the rove beetles of the southern hemisphere.

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