and protozoa that can contaminate food and cause disease. Asia accounts for the majority of the worldâ##s reuse of wastewater in irrigation
Roundwormsthe banana variety Yangambi km5 produces toxic substances that kill the nematode Radopholus similis a roundworm that infects the root tissue of banana plants--to the frustration of farmers worldwide.
The parasitic nematode Radopholus similis is the invisible nemesis of the banana plant says Professor Dirk De Waele:
The nematodes are invisible to the naked eye but they can penetrate the roots of banana plants by the thousands.
Combating nematodes isn't easy adds Professor Swennen: Synthetic pesticides are toxic and expensive. Moreover pesticides usually do not actually kill the nematodes they just temporarily paralyze them.
Nematodes can also build up resistance to pesticides. We have wondered always how the Yangambi km5 fights off roundworms.
This study offers an answer. While the Grande Naine is very susceptible to nematodes other varieties are known to be resistant to them.
Enter the Yangambi km5 a variety first grown in the 1950's at a Belgian research station in Yangambi DR Congo.
Metaboliteswith colleagues at the Max Planck Institute for Chemical Ecology (Germany) the KU Leuven researchers identified the metabolites that kill the nematodes.
We found nine different nematode-killing metabolites in Yangambi km5. These metabolites are produced also in the Grande Naine but much more slowly and in lesser quantities.
In that banana variety the nematodes win the fight. The researchers'findings were published in a recent issue of the journal PNAS.
and pest-resistant banana varieties says Swennen. The next step is to screen other banana varieties for metabolites.
This method could also be applied to other crops and other species of nematode. Nematodes pose a growing threat to rice production in Asia for example.
Our findings also provide the industry with perspectives to develop a generation of new pesticides against nematodes.
Story Source: The above story is provided based on materials by KU Leuven. Note: Materials may be edited for content and length.
and as a result of the pressures brought to bear by people close to them and doctors 10%of women smokers give up smoking
#Predators delay pest resistance to Bt cropscrops genetically modified with the bacterium Bt (Bacillus thuringiensis) produce proteins that kill pest insects.
Steady exposure has prompted concern that pests will develop resistance to these proteins making Bt plants ineffective.
Cornell research shows that the combination of natural enemies such as ladybeetles with Bt crops delays a pestâ##s ability to evolve resistance to these insecticidal proteins. â#oethis is demonstrated the first example of a predator being able
to delay the evolution of resistance in an insect pest to a Bt cropâ#said Anthony Shelton a professor of entomology at Cornell University's New york state Agricultural Experiment Station in Geneva N y
Bt is a soil bacterium that produces proteins that are toxic to some species of caterpillars
and beetles when they are ingested but have been proven safe to humans and many natural enemies including predaceous ladybirds.
Bt genes have been engineered into a variety of crops to control insect pests. Since farmers began planting Bt crops in 1996 with 70 million hectares planted in the United states in 2012 there have been only three clear-cut cases in agriculture of resistance in caterpillars
and one in a beetle. â#oeresistance to Bt crops is said surprisingly uncommonâ Shelton. To delay or prevent insect pests from evolving resistance to Bt crops the U s. Environmental protection agency promotes the use of multiple Bt genes in plants
and the practice of growing refuges of non-Bt plants that serve as a reservoir for insects with Bt susceptible genes. â#oeour paper argues there is another factor involved:
the conservation of natural enemies of the pest speciesâ#said Shelton. These predators can reduce the number of potentially resistant individuals in a pest population and delay evolution of resistance to Bt.
In the study the researchers set up large cages in a greenhouse. Each cage contained Bt broccoli and refuges of non-Bt broccoli.
They studied populations of diamondback moth (Plutella xylostella) larvae a pest of broccoli and their natural enemies ladybird beetles (Coleomegilla maculata) for six generations.
Cages contained different combinations of treatments with and without predators and with and without sprayed insecticides on the non-Bt refuge plants.
Farmers commonly spray insecticides on refuge plants to prevent loss by pests but such sprays can kill predators and prey indiscriminately.
The results showed that diamondback moth populations were reduced in the treatment containing ladybird beetles and unsprayed non-Bt refuge plants.
Also resistance to Bt plants evolved significantly slower in this treatment. In contrast Bt plants with no refuge were defoliated completely in treatments without ladybirds after only four to five generations showing rapid development of resistance in the pests.
In the treatment with sprayed non-Bt refuge plants and predators diamondback moth populations were reduced
but the larvae more quickly evolved resistance to the Bt plants. â#oethese results demonstrate the effectiveness of Bt plants in controlling the pest population the lack of effect of Bt on the predators
and the role predators play in delaying resistance to Bt plants in the pest populationâ#said Shelton.
Story Source: The above story is provided based on materials by Cornell University. The original article was written by Krishna Ramanujan.
Note: Materials may be edited for content and length. Journal Reference r
#Central Hardwoods forest vulnerabilities, climate change impacts reviewed by reporthigher temperatures more heavy precipitation and drought.
It's all expected in the Central Hardwoods Region of southern Indiana southern Illinois and the Missouri Ozarks according to a new report by the U s. Forest Service and partners that assesses the vulnerability of the region's forest ecosystems
Plants animals and people all depend on forests and may all face additional challenges as temperatures increase
The BEEHAVE model published today in the Journal of Applied Ecology was created to investigate the losses of honeybee colonies that have been reported in recent years
and to identify the best course of action for improving honeybee health. A team of scientists led by Professor Juliet Osborne from the Environment and Sustainability Institute University of Exeter (and previously at Rothamsted Research) developed BEEHAVE
which simulates the life of a colony including the queen's egg laying brood care by nurse bees
This is the first opportunity to simulate the effects of several factors together such as food availability mite infestation and disease over realistic time scales.
To build the simulation the scientists brought together existing honeybee research and data to develop a new model that integrated processes occurring inside and outside the hive.
The first results of the model show that colonies infested with a common parasitic mite (varroa) can be much more vulnerable to food shortages.
Effects within the first year can be subtle and might be missed by beekeepers during routine management.
BEEHAVE simulations show that good food sources close to the hive will make a real difference to the colony
Addressing forage availability is critical to maintaining healthy hives and colonies over the long term. Professor Osborne added:
Professor Osborne's research group studies the behaviour and ecology of bees and other pollinators.
This virtual hive is an important new research tool to help us understand how changes to the environment impact on bee health.
and beekeeping practices will benefit honeybees the most. Dr David Aston President of The british Beekeepers Association commented that:
a highly specialized species of tephritid fruit fly whose larvae actually feed on the seeds of the native Barberry was found to have a tenfold higher population density on its new host plant the Oregon grape reports Dr. Harald Auge a biologist at the UFZ.
and then cut open to examine any infestation by the larvae of the tephritid fruit fly (Rhagoletis meigenii).
If the larva is able to develop it will often feed on all of the seeds in the berry.
This mechanism is employed also to defend it from the tephritid fruit fly. If a seed is infested with the parasite later on the developing larva will feed on both seeds.
If however the plant aborts the infested seed then the parasite in that seed will also die
Instead it appears to'speculate'that the larva could die naturally which is a possibility.
But how does the Barberry know what is in store for it after the tephritid fruit fly has punctured a berry?
The Oregon grape that is closely related to the Barberry has been living in Europe for some 200 years with the risk of being infested by the tephritid fruit fly
#Large mammals were the architects in prehistoric ecosystemsresearchers from Denmark demonstrate in a study that the large grazers
Dung beetles recount the nature of the pastthe biologists behind the new research findings synthesized decades of studies on fossil beetles focusing on beetles associated with the dung of large animals in the past or with woodlands and trees.
Their findings reveal that dung beetles were much more frequent in the previous interglacial period (from 132000 to 110000 years ago) compared with the early Holocene (the present interglacial period before agriculture from 10000 to 5000 years ago.
One of the surprising results is that woodland beetles were much less dominant in the previous interglacial period than in the early Holocene
Large animals in high numbers were an integral part of nature in prehistoric times. The composition of the beetles in the fossil sites tells us that the proportion
and number of the wild large animals declined after the appearance of modern man. As a result of this the countryside developed into predominantly dense forest that was cleared first
when humans began to use the land for agriculture explains Professor Jens-Christian Svenning. Bring back the large animals to Europeif people want to restore self-managing varied landscapes they can draw on the knowledge provided by the new study about the composition of natural ecosystems in the past.
An important way to create more self-managing ecosystems with a high level of biodiversity is to make room for large herbivores in the European landscape--and possibly reintroduce animals such as wild cattle bison and even elephants.
They would create and maintain a varied vegetation in temperate ecosystems and thereby ensure the basis for a high level of biodiversity says senior scientist Rasmus Ejrnã s. The study received financial support from the 15 june Foundation and a grant from the European Research Council.
because they create the habitat occupied by a tremendous diversity of other plants and animals.
Another danger of a more homogeneous global food basket is that it makes agriculture more vulnerable to major threats like drought insect pests and diseases
pesticidesresistance to pesticides has now been recorded in nearly a thousand pest species including more than 500 insects 218 weeds and 190 fungi that attack plants.
The recorded cases of resistance in insects mites and other arthropods which include resistance to multiple pesticides per species more than doubled from 5141 in 1990 to 11254 in 2013.
who directs the online Arthropod Pesticide Resistance Database and who also serves as the Entomological Society of America's Liaison to the EPA Office of Pesticide Programs.
and managing insect resistance to corn and cotton plants genetically engineered to produce proteins from the bacterium Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt).
These proteins kill some key pests but are not toxic to people wildlife or even most insects.
Organic growers have used Bt toxins in sprays for decades and conventional farmers have adopted widely transgenic Bt crops since 1996.
or none and that intermediate levels of resistance can have a continuum of effects on pest control the authors describe five categories of field-evolved resistance
and cotton based on monitoring data from five continents for nine major pest species. Emerging resistance of the western corn rootworm to Bt corn exemplifies the urgent need for well-defined
The cost of this insidious beetle to U s. corn growers has been estimated at one billion dollars annually.
Although some scientists have expressed concern that reports of pest resistance to Bt crops provide'ammunition'to anti-biotech activists Tabashnik said Pests are remarkably adaptable.
Noting that insects have been evolving resistance to natural plant defenses for millions of years and that this year marks the 100th anniversary of the first reported case of insecticide resistance he concludes Finding ways to delay resistance is a never-ending challenge with any pest management approach.
Story Source: The above story is provided based on materials by Entomological Society of America. Note: Materials may be edited for content and length.
Flowers attract pollinators fruits attract seed-dispersing animals plants express stress responses and organisms communicate with each other in many ways via color.
Because many of the identified compounds are known to be water soluble using a smoke solution is a convenient alternative to direct fumigation of seeds explains Dr. Janice Coons lead author of the study.
Native species often require special conditions to break seed dormancy explains Coons. This new system allows researchers to produce smoke solutions from any plant species they wish.
Solutions made using the method described by Coons and colleagues on the other hand provide researchers with the means to distinguish the effects of smoke compounds from other additives.
and will allow future researchers to produce smoke solutions from a wide range of plant species found in the habitats they are investigating says Coons.
and the PRRS virus. In production animals inflammation is costly. Inflammation reduces feed intake and it diverts nutrients away from growth to the immune system Pettigrew said
Orange underbellies of female lizards signal fertilityaustralian lizards are attracted to females with the brightest orange patches--but preferably not too large--on their underbelly according to research published in the open-access journal Frontiers in Ecology
Lake Eyre dragon lizards Ctenophorus maculosus are found exclusively in salt deserts in southern Australia where they feed on dead insects blown onto the salt crust.
instead of waving them away with their forelegs or fleeing they let the males court them with showy behavior like pushups and head bobs.
Dr. Devi Stuart-Fox and Jennifer Goode both of the Zoology Department at the University of Melbourne Australia attempted to determine what was more important in driving courtship:
or non-receptive--were decorated with paints closely matched to the natural colors of the female lizard.
As natural lizard color reflects ultraviolet (UV) light the researchers used specialized UV-reflecting paints to accurately mimic female coloration.
and warding off predatory birds who might catch sight of the vulnerable female lizard. Story Source:
Protocol used to demonstrate brucellosis-free bison from infected herdsa new study from the USDA Animal
and Plant Health Inspection Services (APHIS) and the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) demonstrates that it is possible to qualify bison coming from an infected herd as free of brucellosis using quarantine procedures.
In response to Interagency Bison Management Plan (IBMP) guidelines on federal and state bison management actions the USDA APHIS Brucellosis Eradication:
if it could successfully be used to qualify the animals as brucellosis-free. Results of the study indicated that it is feasible to take young bison from an infected population
During the study blood samples were collected from the animals every 30-45 days and tested for brucellosis.
Those animals that tested positive were euthanized and those remaining were tested until all had two consecutive negative tests.
and birthing events all animals testing negative were held until they produced their first calf and showed no evidence of the disease in newborn calves birth fluids or blood.
The results of this study indicate that under the right conditions there is an opportunity to produce live brucellosis-free bison from even a herd with a large number of infected animals like the one in Yellowstone national park said Dr. Jack
Rhyan APHIS Veterinary Officer. Additionally this study was a great example of the benefits to be gained from several agencies pooling resources
The UM &r protocol could facilitate such relocation by demonstrating animals are disease-free and would not transmit brucellosis to cattle or other animals.
At the same time a movement to ecologically restore bison to large landscapes is gaining momentum throughout the United states
The Yellowstone animals passing through this system of testing are critical to conserving the diversity of the bison genome over the long term.
and how to better interpret results when screening animals for this disease. It is our hope that several satellite herds of Yellowstone bison can be assembled from the animals that graduate through this quarantine process.
Story Source: The above story is provided based on materials by Wildlife Conservation Society. Note: Materials may be edited for content and length.
The Indian warning label shows an image of a symbolic scorpion and the Nigerian warning label uses only a vague text message (The Federal Ministry of Health warns that smokers are liable to die young.)
and insect fossils suggesting the Bering land bridge wasn't just barren grassy tundra steppe
Large herd animals like bison or mammoths likely lived on the highland steppe tundra because they graze.
Many smaller animals birds elk and moose (which browse shrubs instead of grazing on grass) would have been in the shrub tundra he adds.
#Livestock beating pandas to the bamboo buffetpandas it turns out aren't celebrating the Year of the Horse.
Livestock particularly horses have been identified as a significant threat to panda survival. The reason: They're beating the pandas to the bamboo buffet.
A paper by Michigan State university panda habitat experts published in this week's Journal for Nature Conservation explores an oft-hidden yet significant conflict in conservation.
Across the world people are struggling to survive in the same areas as endangered animals
and often trouble surfaces in areas we aren't anticipating said Jianguo Jack Liu Rachel Carson Chair in Sustainability at Michigan State university (MSU).
In this case something as innocuous as a horse can be a big problem. China invests billions to protect giant panda habitat
and preserve the 1600 remaining endangered wildlife icons living there. For years timber harvesting has been the panda's biggest threat.
Pandas have specific habitat needs--they eat only bamboo and stay in areas with gentle slopes that are far from humans.
Conservation programs that limit timber harvesting have chalked up wins in preserving such habitat. Vanessa Hull a doctoral student in MSU's Center for Systems Integration and Sustainability (CSIS) has been living off and on for seven years in the Wolong Nature Reserve most recently tracking pandas she's equipped with GPS collars.
She has been working to better understand how these elusive and isolated animals move about and use natural resources.
Over the years she started noticing it wasn't just pandas chowing on bamboo. It didn't take particular panda expertise to know that something was amiss
when we'd come upon horse-affected bamboo patches. They were in the middle of nowhere and it looked like someone had been in there with a lawn mower Hull said.
Alarmed by the growing devastation she learned that some of Wolong's farmers who traditionally hadn't kept horses had been talking to friends outside of the reserve who had been cashing in by raising them.
A horse there Hull said is kind of a bank account. Horses were barred from designated grazing areas
because they competed with cattle so farmers would let them graze unattended in the forests.
When funds were needed they would track the animals down and sell them. It was an idea
whose popularity skyrocketed. In 1998 only 25 horses lived in Wolong. By 2008 350 horses lived there in 20 to 30 herds.
To understand the scope of the problem Hull and her colleagues put the same type of GPS collars they were using to track pandas on one horse in each of the four herds they studied.
Then over a year they compared their activity with that of three collared adult pandas in some of the same areas
and combined it with habitat data. They discovered that horses are indeed big on bamboo
--and also are drawn to the same sunny gently sloped spots as pandas. Pandas and horses eat about the same amount of bamboo
but a herd of more than 20 horses made for a feeding frenzy decimating areas the reserve was established to protect.
Jack Liu (left) and Jindong Zhang talk to a farmer in the Wolong Nature Reserve about the impact livestock can have on panda habitat.
This horse problem has been resolved. The researchers presented their findings to Wolong's managers who have banned
since horses from the reserve. But Hull and Liu note that this work has shed light on how competitive livestock can be in sensitive habitat--an issue that is repeated across the globe.
Livestock affect most of the world's biodiversity hotspots Liu said. They make up 20 percent of all of Earth's land mammals
and therefore monopolize key resources needed to maintain Earth's fragile ecosystems. Story Source: The above story is provided based on materials by Michigan State university.
Note: Materials may be edited for content and length. Journal Reference e
#Methane leaks from palm oil wastewater are a climate concernin recent years palm oil production has come under fire from environmentalists concerned about the deforestation of land in the tropics to make way for new palm plantations.
Now there is a new reason to be concerned about palm oil's environmental impact according to researchers at the University of Colorado Boulder.
An analysis published Feb 26 in the journal Nature Climate Change shows that the wastewater produced during the processing of palm oil is a significant source of heat-trapping methane in the atmosphere.
This year global methane emissions from palm oil wastewater are expected to equal 30 percent of all fossil fuel emissions from Indonesia where widespread deforestation for palm oil production has endangered orangutans.
#Controlling zebra chip disease from the inside outzebra chip disease in potatoes is currently being managed by controlling the potato psyllid with insecticides.
which is transmitted by the psyllid said Dr. Ron French Agrilife Extension plant pathologist in Amarillo.
Biological control methods can target psyllid populations in a field but it takes a while for them to be effective
and by then the insect has transmitted already the bacterium into the plant especially if that psyllid flew into the field.
It only takes a few hours for a psyllid to acquire and transmit the bacterium from plant to plant French said.
French is conducting his studies using alternative controls as a part of the U s. Department of agriculture-National Institute of Food
and Agriculture-sponsored Zebra Chip Specialty Crop Research Initiative. We are looking at three different approaches:
so that any negative impacts the psyllid bacterium disease or pesticide use are having on the plant can translate into improved yields.
when psyllid populations in the field and the instances of zebra chip were said significant French.
and the psyllid as well he said. We hope to be able to do laboratory studies to determine
Year after year there are differences in the field as far as climate disease pressure insect pressure--so sometimes we have to go to the lab to figure out why it works one time and not another.
The third and last approach he is studying is using plant nutrients to offset the damage caused by the psyllid
Tuber symptoms associated with zebra chip were only as high as 3 percent in 2012 and 10 percent in 2013
but that does not take into account foliar symptoms potential insect damage and other yield-limiting factors he said.
and is transmitted by the citrus psyllid. After several years of work French said his studies are beginning to raise more interest from the industry to get products labeled or at least tested.
He said he hoped to get some products labeled if not specifically for zebra chip at least for potato health quality but
which could still be useful on potato production fields where yields may be affected by zebra chip.
New and improved varieties of cowpeas have numerous adaptive traits of agronomic importance such as 60-70 day maturity drought tolerance heat tolerance aphid resistance
and heat tolerant genes but also develop a platform for mapping genes controlling several other biotic and abiotic stress tolerances such as aphid resistance and low phosphorus tolerance both
and structure of the brain's reproductive center is conserved highly among mammals. In goats the researchers already knew it is the hair of males not the urine that shows male effect pheromone activity.
Pairing calves seems to change the way these animals are able to process information said Dan Weary corresponding author and a professor in UBC's Animal Welfare Program.
and animals Weary says adding that the switch from an individual pen to a paired one is often as simple as removing a partition.
The risk of one animal getting sick and affecting the others is real when you're talking about large groups
and using antibiotics in hives to keep the bees disease-free. To help regulate honey safety We have strict import laws that apply to honey coming from certain countries he says.
and hives Bryant contends. That in turn will greatly increase the cost of food. The result might be oranges
#Characterization of stink bug saliva proteins opens door to controlling pestsbrown marmorated stink bugs cause millions of dollars in crop losses across the United states because of the damage their saliva does to plant tissues.
Researchers at Penn State have developed methods to extract the insect saliva and identify the major protein components which could lead to new pest control approaches.
Until now essentially nothing was known about the composition of stink bug saliva which is surprising given the importance of these insects as pests
and the fact that their saliva is the primary cause of feeding injury to plants
Other than using synthetic pesticides there have been few alternative approaches to controlling these pests. By identifying the major protein components of saliva it now may be possible to target the specific factors in saliva that are essential for their feeding and therefore design new approaches for controlling stink bugs.
The team reported its results in PLOS ONE. According to Felton stink bugs produce two types of saliva that are required for successful feeding.
Watery saliva helps stink bugs to digest their food. Sheath saliva surrounds stink bugs'mouthparts
and hardens to prevent spillage of sap during feeding. The hardened sheath remains attached to the plant
when the insect is finished feeding. Unlike a chewing insect which causes damage by removing plant tissue stink bugs pierce plant tissue
and suck nutrients from the plant said Michelle Peiffer research support assistant. During this process stink bugs also deposit saliva onto the plant.
The interaction between this saliva and the plant is what causes the cosmetic and physiological changes that make crops unmarketable.
and Peiffer first collected adult bugs from homes and fields in central Pennsylvania and maintained them in their laboratory.
The researchers chilled the insects on ice. As the insects returned to room temperature their watery saliva was secreted from the tips of their beaks.
The team collected this saliva processed it and analyzed it for protein content. To collect sheath saliva the scientists placed organic grape tomatoes in the cages.
After two days of stink bug feeding they removed the tomatoes from the cages and used forceps to extract the hardened sheaths from the surfaces of the tomatoes.
These results reveal that the protein composition of the sheath is a mixture of insect
but rather it represents the natural coalescing of insect -and plant-derived proteins that occurs during formation of the sheath and subsequent feeding.
and to analyze the proteins should be generally applicable for any species of stink bug.
and the damage it causes researchers can begin to develop targeted control methods for these pests Peiffer said.
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