DiversityScanner

The analysis of organisms from Malaise trap samples primarily requires several major steps, the first being the the separation of individual specimens from bulk samples that contain thousands of often small-sized insects like tiny flies, midges, and parasitoid wasps. The DiversityScanner was developed by the biodiversity researcher Rudolf Meier from the Museum für Naturkunde in Berlin (MfN) and the group of Christian Pytuliak from the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology KIT), in collaboration with entomologists from the SNSB-Zoologische Staatssammlung München and the Sapienza University of Rome. The device allows for the  automated sorting of small insects into different classes using Convoluted Neural Networks.

A prototype system is currently further developed at the KIT, for deployment at institutions conducting large scale biodiversity studies, including the SNSB-ZSM. The DiversityScanner will greatly expedite the biodiversity research at the SNSB-ZSM because it will allow to process bulk samples from Malaise traps at an unprecedented scale. Insect specimens are individually transferred to 95-well microplates for subsequent molecular analysis, whereby DNA barcodes are generated for species identification and for taxonomic studies.