I want free bee metabolic rates!

I've spent the last week compiling a datasheet on the measured metabolic rates of insects from around the world since the 1940s. Tedious? You bet. I need this database so that I can perform what is called a Phylogenetic Generalised Least Squares (PGLS) analysis using data on not just the metabolic rates of insects, but also phylogeny. The question I am asking is: how and what levels of rainfall and ranges in temperatures can influence the evolution of metabolic rate in insects? The problems with this type of analysis are many, yet in evolutionary physiology there is no better way to look at the data as yet. The biggest problem of all is that there is no resolved phylogeny for insects, and we aren't as close as we'd like to be either. Not that it helps that a couple thousand new species are discovered every year, but all I can do at this stage is analyse the data based on the best phylogeny available, and wait until an improved version comes out in the future.

At this stage, I am having difficulty getting enough data on flies and bees. There have been many measures of their metabolic rate, but few papers have specified where the animals were caught, and if they do, the flies and bees have been kept in the laboratory for so long it is pointless using their data to assess the influence of environmental variables I'm interested in on their metabolism.

Free the bees! I need data from bees OUTSIDE of cages! (Nick Cage would also appreciate bee-freeing)

Despite these minor hiccups and tedium associated with sitting at a computer, I actually am looking forward to staring at a computer screen and writing up a paper (I have mid-term review coming up!) on one of my earlier PGLS analyses on the evolution of reptile metabolic rate. Watch this space for my post of paper submission success!

Image: http://i3.kym-cdn.com/entries/icons/original/000/002/910/not-the-bees.jpg