Swat or Not? Identifying Insects in Virtual Reality

Insect identification is difficult. This matters to us, because we need to identify insects in order to track changes in the abundance and distribution of important species, such as pollinators or pests. It also matters to other animals. For example, insect-loving birds can confuse harmless and palatable prey, such as hoverflies, with noxious or defended species, such as wasps or bees. This is why natural selection favours the evolution of Batesian mimics - species which seek to avoid predation by pretending to be something that they are not. In this project, we aim to understand the problem of species identification better by developing an immersive virtual reality (VR) game in which members of the public can encounter wasps and bees, and their hoverfly mimics, without fear of being stung. By playing the game, volunteers will learn how to identify important insect species, and help us to explore ideas about the evolution of mimicry.

We will use high-resolution 3D images of real insects and cutting-edge VR technology to build two apps, one for training in species identification, and the other for use in research about mimicry. We will demonstrate the training app to school children and members of the public at a local science festival, and test it with university students on a field course. We will pilot the research app in a simple experiment designed to test how viewing angle can affect the ability of volunteers to distinguish between wasps and hoverflies. By using an immersive and playful approach, we hope to captivate an audience who might otherwise feel negatively towards insects. Our long-term goal is to engage citizens in entomology, and help them gain the insect identification skills they require to contribute meaningful data which can be used in scientific research seeking to understand the impacts of climate change and other human activities on biodiversity.

Insect identification is difficult. This simple fact has profound evolutionary consequences, because the ability to discriminate among species by predators, prey and potential mates drives adaptive change in insect morphology. It also has serious implications for human society, where species identification is vital for monitoring biodiversity, and the abundance of important pests and beneficial insects. This project seeks a deeper understanding of the challenge of insect identification by developing a novel method for engaging non-expert members of the public in the task. We will create an immersive virtual reality (VR) game in which citizens can encounter wasps and bees, and their hoverfly mimics, without fear of being stung. By playing the game, volunteers will learn how to identify important insect species, and help us to test hypotheses about the evolution of mimicry.

We will use high-resolution 3D images of real insects from an existing NERC-funded project, together with cutting-edge VR technology, to build both a research app and a training app. The training app will teach the user how to identify common hoverfly and hymenopteran species in the context of a playful game. The research app will allow us to manipulate key parameters affecting the ability of a user to identify species, and will be used for testing hypotheses about the evolution of Batesian mimicry. We will demonstrate the training app to school children and members of the public at a local science festival, and compare it with conventional training in insect identification on an undergraduate field course. We will pilot the research app in a simple experiment designed to test how viewing angle can affect perceptions of mimetic accuracy.

Our long-term goal is to engage citizens in entomology, and help them gain the insect identification skills they require to contribute meaningful data which can be used in research into the impacts of climate change and other human activities on biodiversity

This project will have immediate, short-term impact on the public understanding of science and the value of biodiversity, but it also has the potential to create longer-term impact by establishing the groundwork for subsequent large-scale citizen science projects. First, our project will impact directly on a wide audience by demonstrating an immersive and playful virtual reality (VR) game about insect identification at a local science festival, and with undergraduates on a field course. We will demonstrate the challenges of insect species identification to school children in disadvantaged areas of Nottingham through the Communities Programme of the Nottingham Festival of Science and Curiosity, and the wider public through the festival's "public day". We hope that this demonstration, deployed via a high-specification VR headset, will be a spectacular and futuristic experience that will capture the imagination of people who may typically think of insects as scary, a nuisance or unimportant. The potential benefits are diverse, from piquing the interest of a generation of future citizen scientists who might contribute species records to the Hoverfly Recording Scheme, to engaging people in a debate about the importance of stinging wasps and bees in our economy and ecosystems, and the role of natural selection in shaping the appearance of the species we encounter in our gardens.

The longer-term impact of the project will be realised in two large-scale future projects. First, the development of a pilot training app will establish the potential for VR games to engage and teach people to be become citizen scientists who can contribute data to species recording schemes at national or international scales. Building on this, we plan to seek funding to work with existing hoverfly and hymenopteran recording schemes to engage citizens in recording the insects in their gardens, improving the scope and quality of the data available for ecological research into changing species distributions. Second, the current project will deliver a prototype research app, which can be used as a tool for hypothesis testing in evolutionary biology. A future funding bid will seek to extending this approach, creating games which immerse citizens in a virtual world in which we can simulate the feedback between predatory behaviour and evolutionary change in prey species. By actively involving citizens as agents of natural selection, we believe that we can create a potent tool for educating the public about the process of evolution - an important outcome, considering the hostile environment that exists for evolutionary biology in some parts of the world.