Michiel Boeken

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As soon as he entered the island in 2010, Michiel Boeken fell in love with The Unspoiled Queen. During his two years as principal of the Saba Comprehensive School, he carried out several studies in his holidays and spare time, esp. the monitoring of orchids and the breeding success of the Red-billed Tropicbirds. Back in Holland, he realized that these activities were the reason for his study biology, and so he started to work as an independent ecologist, next to activities in education. Specialized in ground beetles (Carabids) and other ground bound critters, he conducts research by means of pitfall traps in different locations. Also he tries to visit Saba frequently, not only to continue his monitoring of tropicbirds, but also on the instructions of Wageningen Marine Research.

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In 2024 he organized the Saba Relay Expedition, focused on insects and other terrestrial invertebrates, to document the biodiversity of Saba. During Sea and Learn 2024 and January-March 2025, on island known as Critter Quest 2025, every two weeks another team of specialists were active in collecting, which resulted in an amazing set of data, with many new species for Saba, the Caribbean and even to science. During his presentation Michiel will explain the importance of knowledge of biodiversity, and show some (preliminary) results, illustrated with photos made by the different participating scientists of bees, wasps, butterflies, spiders, and many more.​

 

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