athletes in sports such as cricket long jump triple jump and pole vault and found the vertical objects sportspeople see at the end of the runway significantly impact their performance.
#Femme fatale emerald ash borer decoy lures, kills malesan international team of researchers has designed decoys that mimic female emerald ash borer beetles
and successfully entice male emerald ash borers to land on them in an attempt to mate only to be electrocuted
what the U s. Department of agriculture Forest Service claims to be the most destructive forest pest ever seen in North america said Michael Domingue postdoctoral fellow in entomology Penn State.
According to the Forest Service the emerald ash borer was introduced to the United states from China in 2002.
Early detection of the pest in traps such as ours can help in coordinating management strategies to slow its spread
Specifically we coated a dead female beetle with a vapor of nickel and used the'nickelized'shell to fabricate two matching molds in the shape of a resting beetle said Akhlesh Lakhtakia Charles Godfrey Binder professor of engineering science and mechanics
The finished bioreplicated decoys retained the surface texture of the beetle at the nanoscale. Additionally we painted some decoys a metallic green.
and shape of emerald ash borers but did not attempt to duplicate the surface texture of the insects.
and 3d printed decoys as well as dead female emerald ash borers onto leaves in forests in Hungary to see which of them best attracted wild males.
In the same forests the team also placed traps configured with decoys bearing a 4000-volt charge to electrocute
and captured by the trap if the voltage was applied to the decoys. According to Domingue the light-scattering properties of the beetle's shell--which the team experimentally demonstrated using a white laser--made the nano-bioreplicated decoys more lifelike and therefore more attractive to males than the non-textured 3d printed decoy.
We learned that not only do color and shape of a resting female beetle play a role in attracting males to a mate
Beetles appear to be able to recognize this feature of the decoys and are attracted strongly to it.
Ultimately we have gained new insights into how to manipulate the behavior of emerald ash borers
and similar pests in ways that can help to trap them and monitor where they might be doing damage.
thus enabling us to figure out how these destructive beetles find each other to mate and how we can exploit this behavior
in order to help APHIS meet its goals of early detection and mitigation of invasive pests he said.
The researchers said their next step will be to further improve the traps to maximize their potential as part of an early detection tool for emerald ash borers.
Our laboratory has ongoing research with the USDA Animal Plant Health Inspection Service into remote-reporting Internet-based technologies
and we will be working to couple this research with our ash-borer detection technique so that activity of the pest can be reported
and assessed immediately by APHIS personnel rather than waiting days or weeks until a trap might usually be checked said Baker.
In addition the team has been investigating the use of the decoys to attract other insect species some
of which are aggressive feeders on oak trees in Central europe and might threaten North american oaks in urban
and forest landscapes much as the emerald ash borer destroyed ash trees. We have made progress in our research so far in Hungary these past few summers
and it looks like our decoys can be refined to attract and detect these other new and potentially invasive pest species effectively said Domingue.
Story Source: The above story is provided based on materials by Penn State. The original article was written by Sara Lajeunesse.
Note: Materials may be edited for content and length. Journal Reference e
#Mystery of cereal grain defense explainedcrop scientists at Washington state University have explained how genes in the barley plant turn on defenses against aging and stressors like drought heat and disease.
-and pest-resistance traits of other grasses using a legion of genetic tools that can reduce crop losses
Instead of being diploid with two sets of chromosomes like humans and most other living things it became polyploid with in the case of bread wheat seven sets of six related chromosomes.
Starting in 1958 just five years after the discovery of DNA's double-helix structure researchers suspected that a specific gene controls the orderly pairing of wheat chromosomes during reproduction.
#Tigers, pandas and people: Recipe for conservation insightthe first big revelation in conservation sciences was that studying the people on the scene as well as nature conservation was crucial.
Or more accurately tigers and pandas. In the journal Ecology & Society Michigan State university scientists show that useful insights
They compare the Wolong Nature Reserve in southwestern China home to about 150 wild endangered giant pandas and the Chitwan National park in Nepal
which shelters 125 wild endangered tigers. People and wildlife are coupled tightly human and natural systems said Jianguo Jack Liu Rachel Carson Chair in Sustainability at MSU.
Over many years interdisciplinary studies on pandas tigers and the people who live amongst them are revealing some universal truths about conservation around the globe.
The lead author is Neil Carter who did his doctoral work at MSU's Center for Systems Integration and Sustainability (CSIS) studying tigers in Nepal.
CSIS also is known for two decades of work understanding how pandas and people coexist in Wolong.
This week's paper has Team Panda and Team Tiger essentially comparing notes on the academic frontier.
They show that it isn't always necessary to reinvent a methodology that works. Wildlife researchers and conservation practitioners in Nepal can keep a framework of coupled human
and conservation policies represent a constant struggle to balance the residents'need to eke out a living with the pandas'full reliance on a specific lifestyle that centers on vast access to bamboo.
Tigers can venture out to attack livestock and also can pose a threat to the people who walk through the woods.
On the surface pandas and tigers seem to have different impacts. Pandas eat bamboo. Tigers sometimes eat livestockâ#and even people though rarely.
Both of these animals bring advantages too which range from the tangible such as attracting tourists to more esoteric benefits such as spirituality and national pride.
But the authors note that issues of telecoupling processes such as tourism and migration can loom large in many flagship nature reserves as do issues of how policy is executed
and how the people living in and around the reserves behave. Giving scientists a framework to compare similar dynamics makes for more meaningful information for those developing
This stemmed from an increase in the elk population which flourished on the pioneer flora growing on the newly emerged land.
which could not maintain the large elk population. After the end of the last ice age postglacial rebound caused the Earth's crust in eastern Fenno-Scandinavia to tilt increasing the amount of water
The archaeological study of bones in the area reveals that the significance of elk as game was much greater in the emerging culture compared with the cultures that came before or after it.
We are beginning to understand how pioneer growth on the emerging land increased the elk population
which provided a less ideal elk habitat than the recently-emerged land. Story Source: The above story is provided based on materials by University of Helsinki.
and sheep industries in the United states an estimated $125 million annually manages to survive the winter by reproducing in the insect that transmits it report veterinary scientists at the University of California Davis. The findings solve a century-old mystery
By conducting this epidemiological study on a commercial dairy farm in Northern California we were able to demonstrate that the virus overwinters in female midges that had fed on an infected animal during the previous season said lead author Christie Mayo a veterinarian
About bluetonguebluetongue disease first identified during the 1800s in southern Africa is transmitted by the Culicoides biting midge a tiny gnat sometimes referred to as a no-seeum.
but also infects cattle and goats as well as deer and other wild ruminants. In the U s. the virus'greatest economic impact is in the cattle industry
when midges are abundant in late summer and fall but there has been speculation over how the virus survives through the winter.
and the biting-midge populations plummet transmission appears to cease for more than six months but the virus reappears
when temperatures warm the following season Findings from California dairythe researchers monitored cows and midges on a Northern California dairy farm for more than a year.
They documented for the first time the presence of genetic material for the bluetongue virus in female midges that were collected during two consecutive winter seasons.
The bluetongue virus was widespread in both the dairy cows and the midges from August to November.
Surprisingly however the researchers discovered that the virus was also present in female midges captured in February of both 2013 and 2014.
The researchers concluded that those long-lived female midges had been infected with the bluetongue virus during the previous warm-weather season.
and can cause heavy diarrhea in the animals. The parasite Cystoisospora suis damages the intestinal mucosa to such a degree that it threatens the growth and survival of the pigs.
For the purpose of the study 25 animals aged three days were infected and observed in comparison with another 26 healthy non-infected animals.
The researchers analysed various different immune cells in the intestines of both groups over the course of the first days of life.
Both types of T cells were detected significantly earlier in infected piglets than in non-infected animals.
Their exact role in the intestines of the animals however remains unclear Gabner says. Cystoisospora suis affects epithelial cells in the intestine
Just four days after infection the researchers found increased expression of certain pathogen receptors (TLR-2 and NOD2) and signalling molecules involved in inflammatory reactions (TNF-Î) in the intestine of the infected animals.
They deliberately infected sows with the parasites during gestation in order to increase the antibody levels in the maternal animals.
#Potato ravaging pest controlled with fungiapproximately six thousand hectares of Veracruz in the west coast of Mexico are dedicated to the production of potato (Solanum tuberosum) in
During the past 30 years the fields of the Cofre de Perote area were affected by the presence of the golden nematode of potatoes (Globodera rostochiensis) reducing performance of the crop by more than 40 percent.
According to records of the Institute of Ecology (INECOL) in Mexico there were six thousand cysts per kilogram of soil of the nematode
the only options for control of the pest farmers have had are highly toxic chemicals many of them severely restricted.
and tested a fungus capable of feeding from the nematode therefore a biological pest control was achieved the use of chemicals ceased and agriculture on the region improved.
Because of its importance at a global level the bionematicide was protected intellectually and has a patent pending for Europe United states and South america;
Plant parasitic nematodes are microorganisms that feed on the nutrients absorbed by the roots of plants;
and that the region could have fungal antagonists for the golden nematode; after a scan we found some in 2005 that could be potential biological control agents.
which reduced up to 90 percent of the golden nematode population in two years by combining biological control with other methods for an integrated management.
She also mentiones that the science team at INECOL also works in changing habits and customs of farmers that favor the introduction and spread of agricultural pests and diseases mainly in the region of the Cofre de Perote;
and the golden nematode is present. The Biodiversity and Systematics Network is currently studying the major pest problems for the bean (Vicia faba) one of the crops used for rotation in the highlands of the state using the same bionematicide and some other biocontrol agents.
In Mexico we have the knowledge to deal with this kind of problems and to perform research focused on the generation of biological pesticides which is a very important issue for agriculture due to the increasing restriction on the use of chemical pesticides emphasizes the scientist at INECOL.
and has gone so far as to establish the economic value of pest-eating birds and crop-pollinating bees.
The researchers have developed an extraordinarily detailed data set to show human impacts on phylogenetic diversity a measure of the evolutionary history embodied in wildlife--in this case birds.
For example an area inhabited by two species of blackbirds that diverged only a couple of million years ago would have relatively low phylogenetic diversity.
The tinamou--a speckled football-shaped flightless bird--diverged from blackbirds about 100 million years ago
and if it moved into the blackbird's habitat the phylogenetic diversity of that area would increase significantly.
The biologists counted almost 120000 birds hailing from nearly 500 species in three different types of habitats in Costa rica:
While sparrows are adept at finding shelter in farmlands and are happy to eat a variety of seeds found in those areas the tinamou
and other evolutionarily distinct species are highly dependent on jungle habitats and have very specific needs such as diet that can only be met in those environments.
We find some evidence that birds that evolved in those types of habitats such as blackbirds
and sparrows are doing better in those habitats today. Preserving biodiversity and phylogenetic history is critical for both healthy ecosystems
Different species specialize in keeping different pest insects under control in pollinating the many flowering trees and other plants in tropical landscapes and then in dispersing their seeds.
Having just sparrows in an ecosystem is like investing only in technology stocks: If the bubble bursts you lose Frishkoff said.
Even relatively modest increases in vegetation on farms can support diverse lineages of birds. Story Source:
because it takes into account how unwanted pests or pathogens may adapt rapidly to our interventions
Not considering such aspects may result in outcomes opposite of those desired making the pests more resistant to our actions humans more exposed to diseases
For example farmers in the United states and Australia have used planting of pest-friendly refuges to delay evolution of insect resistance to genetically engineered corn and cotton.
These genetically modified crops kill certain pests but without refuges the pests quickly adapt. Providing refuges of conventional plants has been especially effective for suppressing resistance in the pink bollworm an invasive pest of cotton.
However Peter Jørgensen also cautions: In many cases decision makers must pay more attention to assuring that long-term benefits of applying these solutions do not come at a short-term cost for some individuals for example from yield loss due to localised effects of pests in a particular year.
By encouraging cost sharing local communities and governments play a crucial role in ensuring that everybody gains from the benefits of using evolutionary biology to realise the long-term goals of sustainable development such as increasing food security protecting biodiversity
#Unusual host preference of a moth species could be useful for biological controla team of Iranian researchers from the Rice Research Institute of Iran have discovered that Gynnodomorpha permixtana a well-known moth species from Europe
The importance of this adaptation for biological control of problematic weeds in rice fields and the biology of the moth on new host plant have been described in the open access journal Nota Lepidopterologica.
Their studies have revealed that the larvae of a certain moth species feeding on the fruits
After this discovery the moth was sent for identification to Dr Leif Aarvik from the Natural history Museum University of Oslo who have diagnosed the species as the commonly known G. permixtana
'To our surprise it looks like this moth chose new host plant in Iran. This moth was reported in 2009 from the northern regions of the country
but its host plant was unknown. Its usual host plants such as water-plantain also grow in Iran
That made this moth host range and biology in Iran rather mysterious at that point and the recent discovery of arrowheads as its preferred host in the region brings even more peculiarity in the story.'
and quantity climatic conditions synchronization physiological conditions in both insect and food plant genetic modifications etc.
and change in different environmental conditions so an insect can change its choice of food plant on the basis of seeking the most beneficial complex of factors.
Human intelligence has a physical basis in the huge size of our brains--some seven times larger than would be expected for a mammal with our body size said Steven Gaulin UCSB professor of anthropology
Singularly and combined these factors lower the toxicity threshold of fungicides for springtails. The study by scientists from the LOEWE Biodiversity and Climate Research Centre (Bik-F) the Goethe University and the ECT Oekotoxikologie Gmbh was published in the September issue of the journal Applied Soil Ecology.
Springtails are tiny about 10 mm large creatures which participate in essential soil functions. Its numerous species include Folsomia candidaand Sinella curviseta
If springtails are affected therefore soil fertility will be affected too. As the new study shows low soil moisture (i e. 30%of the water holding capacity) leads to significant reduction of springtail juveniles.
We experimented with two different species of springtails. Both of them--but especially Folsomia candida--might have difficulties to produce enough offspring to keep a population stable in dry soil says Cornelia Bandow an ecologist at ECT Ecotoxicology Gmbh who conducts research for the German Biodiversity
and Climate Research Centre (Bik-F). Extreme climate conditions may also alter the effect of pesticides on soil organisms.
A risk for springtails under field conditions may not be expected as the toxic threshold of pyrimethanil is far above the maximum concentrations that may occur in soil
#Cat bites dog: In Indias human dominated landscapes, top prey for leopards is dogsa new study led by the Wildlife Conservation Society reveals that in India's human dominated agricultural landscapes where leopards prowl at night
it's not livestock that's primarily on the menu--it is man's best friend.
The study which looked at scat samples for leopards in India's Ahmednagar's district in Maharashtra found that 87 percent of their diet was made up of domestic animals.
Domestic dog dominated as the most common prey item at 39 percent and domestic cats were second at 15 percent.
Seventeen percent of the leopard's diet consisted of assorted wild animals including rodents monkeys and mongoose and birds.
Livestock despite being made more abundant up a relatively small portion of the leopard's diet.
Domestic goats for example are seven times more common than dogs in this landscape yet only make up 11 percent of leopard's prey.
The author's say this is because goats are less accessible and often brought into pens at night
while dogs are allowed largely to wander freely. Cows sheep and pigs were eaten also but collectively made up less than 20 percent of leopard's food.
Most domestic cattle in this region are too large to be preyed on by leopards. The author's of the study say that the selection of domestic dogs as prey means that the economic impact of predation by leopards on valuable livestock is expected lower than.
Thus human-leopard conflict is more likely to be related to people's fears of leopards foraging in the proximity of their houses and the sentimental value of dogs as pets.
Study co-author Ullas Karanth WCS Director for Science-Asia said: During the past two-to-three decades legal regulation of leopard hunting increased conservation awareness and the rising numbers of feral dogs as prey have led all to an increase in leopard numbers outside
of nature reserves in agricultural landscapes. While this is good news for conservation and a tribute to the social tolerance of Indian people it also poses major challenges of managing conflict that occasionally breaks out.
Only sound science can help us face this challenge. Story Source: The above story is provided based on materials by Wildlife Conservation Society.
#Mosquito fact and fictionone of Jason Pitts'favorite stories is about mosquitoes and their strange attraction to Limburger cheese.
and other mosquito-borne illnesses by developing new and improved attractants and repellants. In his spare time he collects interesting facts
In the 1990's Dutch biologists put Limburger cheese in a wind tunnel with malaria mosquitoes and were surprised to find that females were drawn to the smell he said.
and that is what attracted the mosquitoes. The researchers used this discovery to develop Limburger-based traps that mosquitoes find two to three times more attractive than humans.
Pitts has found that the story about the mosquitoes and Limburger is a real crowd pleaser.
He has discovered also that two topics almost always come up when people learn that he studies mosquitoes for a living.
People want to know more about the giant mosquitoes in their homes and they wonder why mosquitoes appear to bite some individuals more than others.
Times past counting people have told Pitts that they have giant mosquitoes at home and asked him
if they are the biggest mosquitoes in the world. He responds by asking just how big these giant mosquitoes are.
If the answer is two inches or more Pitts informs them that they aren't mosquitoes at all:
They are called crane flies also mosquito hawks. Crane flies are harmless. They don't bite and they don't eat mosquitoes as some people claim he tells them.
Pitts is certain of his ground because the world's largest mosquitoes have a wingspan of only an inch
and they are found right here in Tennessee. I've caught them in my backyard
but they are very hard to find. You really have to hunt for them Pitts said.
They are called elephant mosquitoes and they don't feed on blood. In fact their larvae feed on other mosquito larvae
so they can potentially help reduce the population size of other harmful mosquitoes. There are more than 3000 species of mosquitoes worldwide
but only 150 of them are found in North america Pitts said. We only know of around 40 species in Tennessee he reported.
The second question Pitts frequently gets is Why am I the one that mosquitoes always bite?
We have a general answer to that question: It has to do with individual variations in body odor
but right now we don't understand the specific combination of odorants that mosquitoes find most attractive Pitts said.
Also different species are attracted to different smells. The source of the aromatic compounds that produce body odor are bacterial colonies that exist on human skin particularly in dark moist areas such as the arm pits and between the toes.
Pitts and his colleagues have discovered that mosquito antennae are filled with hundreds of tiny odor receptors
which are tuned individually to detect specific odors. While they have identified dozens of aromatic compounds that trigger the mosquito's antennae the researchers haven't discovered one that acts as a super-attractant.
The experimental evidence strongly supports the conclusion that mosquitoes are attracted by blends of odors rather than a single odorant he explained.
Individual compounds on the other hand can act as powerful repellants. Natural repellants such as clove oil citronella lemon grass eucalyptus castor oil peppermint lavender and cedar oil all work to a limited extent Pitts said
but almost all of them are less effective than the synthetic repellant DEET and they need to be reapplied more frequently.
Actually odors combined with heat are the basis of the mosquitoes'short-range detection system Pitts said.
The pesky insects also have a long-range system that allows them to track down potential prey from more than 100 yards away.
The mosquitoes do so in part by sensing the carbon dioxide in human breath. When we exhale our breath contains four to five percent more carbon dioxide than the surrounding air
and mosquitos can detect this difference. As you exhale your breath is carried by air currents as a series of bubbles enriched in CO2 that can persist for some time Pitts said.
Female mosquito flight is activated by CO2 and she can dart upwind from bubble to bubble in pursuit of her target.
According to some studies mosquitoes are attracted more strongly to human breath after a person has downed a beer
Some people claim that mosquitoes can fly between raindrops. This may seem farfetched but actually has an element of truth.
A study using high-speed video has shown that mosquitoes don't exactly fly between drops so much as the raindrops bounce off them.
Surprisingly the mosquitoes'small size and flexible exoskeleton actually reduces the impact of the raindrops on the insects'bodies.
Many experts categorize mosquitoes as specialists. That is different species of mosquitoes prey on specific animal hosts.
For example the malaria mosquito Anopheles gambiae prefers to feed on humans while other species may prefer birds dogs sheep etc.
However Pitts argues that these insects are opportunists rather than true specialists. For example numerous studies of A. gambiae taken from African huts have found that virtually all the females collected contained human blood:
A finding consistent with the specialist label. But A. gambiae females prefer to rest indoors
and these studies were done in areas where people keep their animals outside. A similar study conducted in another part of Africa where the people live in houses built on stilts
and domestic animals (dogs and pigs) rest below found that only 20 percent of the A. gambiae females contained human blood while the rest contained animal blood.
This strongly suggests that Anopheles females are not specialists that require human blood but instead are opportunists--they may have preferences
but they will use many available warm-blooded animals as hosts he said. Despite all the time and effort that researchers have spent studying mosquitoes there still is a tremendous amount that they don't understand Pitts said.
For example we don't understand how mating pairs which are coupled head-to-head can fly in such a configuration
or even recognize each other after their initial encounter. Another outstanding mystery is how adult females can survive the severe seven-month dry season in the Sahel region of Africa without dying from extreme desiccation.
Mosquitoes have managed to survive for more than 46 million years--more than 100 times longer than man
Each year 700 million people worldwide suffer from mosquito-borne diseases and millions die. Story Source:
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