Ivie collects insects from vegetation using a beating sheet and aspirator. Photo by Derek Sikes.

World-renowned beetleman

Ivie was one of four scientists invited by Conservation International, a nonprofit organization based in Virginia devoted to preserving biological diversity, to travel to the northeast part of the Caribbean in May to document the insects on the island of Saba. Another team member was David L. Wagner from the University of Connecticut. Wagner said Ivie is a highly recognized authority on Caribbean biogeography and Caribbean entomology; in fact he is a linchpin of knowledge about that region.

"Beetles are difficult to collect," Wagner said. "Many occur in really specialized habitats and in low numbers."

"Hello, anybody home?" Ivie calls to two graduate students he knows must be there somewhere.

Saba and Statia, also known as St. Eustatius, were the last two volcanic islands remaining for him to visit in the Leeward Islands, Ivie said. They're only 11 minutes apart by airplane, but that's far enough to give them separate ecosystems, he added. After traveling to Saba, Ivie traveled by himself to collect beetles on Statia.

While both are island paradises that attract tourists and adventurers, Ivie and his teammates bypassed the diving and museums on this trip, instead searching day and night for insects. They beat bushes, overturned rocks, peeled bark, examined fungus inside hiking huts and gingerly climbed up and down algae-covered steps.

"The glamour of going all these places is much overrated," Ivie said. "I went to the Caribbean for 10 days and never got into the sea. I spent most of the time filthy dirty, getting rashes, getting poked, falling down, sunburned."

Still, the results -- and the field that has fascinated him for the past four decades -- were worth it, Ivie said. In 24 hours alone, he figures he quadrupled the number of beetles known to live on Statia. During the rest of the trip, he saw the largest individual specimen he'd ever seen of one species. He learned that the evolutionary patterns among West Indian beetles are far more complex than he realized. He worked in environments that were unusual even for him.

An enormous crater in Statia, for example, holds a lush rainforest with trees taller than any he has seen in the West Indies, Ivie said. Protected from the hurricanes that seem to knock down trees elsewhere in the Caribbean every 50 years, the rainforest in the crater had time to grow a double canopy. The fertile soil that conceals its roots and beetles holds moisture even during the dry season.

Getting the bug for bugs

Ivie grew up far from the Caribbean, or Montana, in northern California, where his father taught seventh-graders, and his mother owned a variety store. At that time, Salida, Calif., was a small but diverse farming community in a county where Hershey made chocolate bars, Gallo turned grapes into wine, and farmers grew almonds and fruit. Ivie's wife of 34 years, Donna, grew up about six miles from him. It was in that environment that he got the bug for bugs, Ivie said. He was 12 years old and collecting insects for a 4-H project when he realized how intriguing they were. He decided to pursue bugs as a career after learning that people actually made a living studying insects.

"There's never a time when you don't have something more to learn. There's just such an endless variety of things," Ivie said of his field.

Derek Sikes, one of Ivie's former MSU graduate students who is now curator of insects at the University of Alaska Museum in Fairbanks, and who was also on the Saba trip, said scientists have named more than 350,000 species of beetles, but the job is hardly finished. One out of every five species of organisms on Earth is a beetle, so there are "tons" left to describe. Beetles provide valuable insights into the health, age and complexity of an ecosystem, Sikes added.

Ivie said basic research about beetles contributes to a variety of fields, such as agriculture, genetics, conservation, evolution and biodiversity.

"They are the intellectual high point of the universe, and all knowledge can be had via their study," Ivie said, tongue in cheek.

Ivie earned his bachelor's degree in entomology from the University of CaliforniaÐDavis in 1977, then worked for the California Department of Food and Agriculture and the University of California Cooperative Extension. In 1978, he moved to the West Indies to work two years as an Extension agent-in-charge and adjunct professor of agriculture at the College of the Virgin Islands, now the University of the Virgin Islands.

The islands and their beetles laid the foundation for the rest of his career, Ivie said. He had thought he would inventory all the insects in the Virgin Islands, but he quickly gave that up. A friend suggested he start with beetles, so he began with them and continued.

At the same time he was collecting insects, he learned the social skills he needed to work in the Caribbean. The islands may seem comfortably familiar to tourists, but the islanders have their own mores and culture, Ivie explained. In some ways, however, they remind him of his upbringing, when Salida had 600 people and his mom "had a set of eyes on every block."

Ivie left the West Indies in 1980 to attend graduate school at Ohio State University. He earned his master's degree in entomology there in 1982 and his doctoral degree in systematic entomology in 1985. He moved to Montana later that year and remains because he likes the state. "I have the perfect job for me," he said. "It's in the perfect place with perfect duties."

He also appreciates Montana's dry climate because it's good for preserving insects. He even appreciates Montana's winters.

"If you don't have winter, you don't have time to catch up," he said.

Ivie, who figures he has traveled to 50 countries so far, has had plenty of opportunities to return to the West Indies. He has been invited back next spring, for example, to continue collecting beetles. His research is funded by a variety of sources. The National Science Foundation is among those who fund his basic research. Conservation International pays him to study life in a particular location. The U.S. Department of Agriculture funds projects that relate to invasive pests.

Return to regular view	Text-only              Email this article	Published: 11/24/2008