Stephen A. Marshall’s latest book, Hymenoptera: The Natural History and Diversity of Wasps, Bees and Ants, was one of LJ’s Best Print Reference picks for 2023 and also won the prestigious Dartmouth Medal. LJ invited Marshall to reflect upon the definition of reference, his approach to writing and research, and his fieldwork.

What is reference to you?

I suppose that a reference work, by definition, is something “referenced” or referred to on a regular basis. In my line of work, that means a source used to confirm or find correct taxon names, distributional data, natural history basics, and links to more specialized references.

Hymenoptera is filled with science and wonder. What is your writing and research process to ensure those elements are incorporated into your reference books and are easily understood by general readers?

My writing process is essentially an attempt to organize, simplify, and illustrate diversity. In a sense, I write for my past self by trying to provide the kind of information that would have served me well when I first set out to understand insect diversity. Many general readers are now on similar paths and will hopefully benefit from content designed to overcome the very obstacles I faced as a beginner not that long ago.

My research process involves digesting a lot of primary literature, most of which gets filtered out as not relevant to the general naturalist, but some of which is retained as a sort of framework. My research career has been spent as a taxonomist—discovering species, naming species and working out their relationships to one another and to the world. I think that’s a good background for someone writing about natural history, even though, in some ways, taxonomy can be thought of as the flip side of natural history.... With luck, my books achieve a balance between these two identities by putting anecdotal natural history on the solid framework of taxonomy.

It would be remiss of me to not mention that my research process involves consultation with lots of other taxonomists with their own narrow specialties. They have been, almost without exception, incredibly generous in checking my facts and identifications in their areas of expertise.

Please describe your life as a scholar and field researcher. Do you travel much? If so, where does your work take you? What takes place in the field?

I am a lifelong insect enthusiast, with insect collections dating back more than 60 years and a long career teaching about insects and developing a major university insect collection. My first major book dealt mostly with northeastern North American insects, but subsequent books took a broader approach, and I attempted to provide a global overview in my books on flies, beetles, and wasps. That was made possible by a great deal of international fieldwork and photography.

I have always traveled widely, starting with solo travels in Asia in the early 1970s and progressing to entomological research trips to various tropical localities, starting with Ecuador in 1979 and going on to many more trips throughout the neotropics, Asia, Africa, and the Australian region. At first, my field trips were intensive insect collecting trips with very little opportunity for photography or general natural history, but in recent years those priorities have become inverted, and in retirement, I am more of a field naturalist than an “insect collector.” I have also taught many field courses in places such as Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia, Costa Rica, Vietnam, and India. The enthusiasm and inspiration of my students and co-instructors on those field courses contributed immensely to my development as a writer on biodiversity and natural history.

As an environmental biologist, you have the goal and mission to protect the environment and human health. What can general readers do to protect and help insects in their own backyards and in public spaces?

There is nothing like a long career documenting biodiversity to get a firsthand perspective on what our species is doing to our one and only planet. I think that readers of general works on natural history and diversity, just by being general readers, are taking an important step to protect biodiversity. General readers understand that insects are, as E.O. Wilson put it, “the little things that run the world.” Commonsense actions, like native plantings and reduced pesticide use, are important but tend to be dwarfed by the impact of expanding populations and continued growth and development. Habitat must be preserved if those little things are going to continue to run the world.