Dear bioacousticians, This mail concerns those interested in insects. We have modified the typical plastic McPhail trap into an electronic one. As the insect flies-in the trap it interrupts with its wings an opto-electronic sensor. The recording of the light-fluctuation is turned to audio. This short-time recording is enough to detect and classify the insect (classification results in a forthcoming paper). The counts are transmitted at the end of the day through a SIM card embedded in the trap that uses the GSM net. Therefore insect counts can be transmitted as far as to another continent whit a small cost. The paper is open access and provides detailed instructions on how to make a prototype, how much it costs and its carefully calculated projected cost (40 Euros) http://www.mdpi.com/1424-8220/14/12/22285 We envision that modified traps could monitor insect species and densities in remote areas. An electronic McPhail trap would reduce the human monitoring cost and reduce the time-lag between actual events and processing of information thus improving the effectiveness of decision-making.
Kind regards Dr. Potamitis Ilyas TEIC GREECE
