After testing scores of samples taken from rice fields across the state MSU scientists found that seed treatments are effective in managing the crop's most troublesome insect pests.
The main reason for that yield increase is rice water weevil control. Gore said seed treatments are effective in both conventional rice varieties and hybrids.
Although they do not provide 100 percent control of rice water weevil seed treatments do provide significant benefits in rice he said.
Insect managementgore works at the Delta Research and Extension Center in Stoneville. He said researchers take core samples about 4 inches in diameter
and count the rice water weevil larvae. An infestation of one larva per core will result in about a 1 percent yield loss Gore said.
Typical infestations in the Delta range from 10 to 25 weevils per core in untreated fields resulting in a 10 to 25 percent yield loss.
Gore said that seed treatments provide other benefits to rice producers too. Seed treatments provide good control against a whole complex of other rice pests he said.
Seed treatments help manage chinch bugs grape colapsis thrips and soil insects such as wire worms and white grubs and get the plants off to a good healthy start.
Performance under flood Seed treatments for row crops such as corn cotton or soybean target early-season pests that are in the soil
We're targeting primarily rice water weevils and they only move into the field when producers establish the permanent flood about three to six weeks after planting Gore said.
which is about two months that the seed treatment was sitting in the soil without having insect pressure Adams said.
if the lower seeding rate and hence the lower seed treatment rate on a per acre basis impacted insect control.
The management practice that showed significant improvement in rice water weevil control beyond the seed treatment was a foliar overspray with a pyrethroid on hybrid rice Gore said.
#Asian longhorned beetles pheromone could be used to manage pestfemale Asian longhorned beetles lure males to their locations by laying down sex-specific pheromone trails on tree surfaces according to an international
and identified four chemicals from the trails of virgin and mated female Asian longhorned beetles--Anoplophora glabripennis--that were not found in the trails of males.
and behavior activities have been evaluated in the laboratory bioassays according to Aijun Zhang research chemist U s. Department of agriculture Agricultural research service Beltsville Agricultural Research center Invasive Insect Biocontrol and Behavior Laboratory.
The synthetic trail pheromone may be useful in managing the invasive beetles in the field. Zhang isolated identified
It is possible that the synthetic version of pheromone could be used in combination with an insect pathogenic fungus that is being studied at Cornell University by Ann Hajek Hoover said.
By also applying the pheromone that female beetles use to attract males we can trick the male beetles into going to the deadly fungicide rather than to a fertile female.
and the ecosystem few scientists have observed insects adapting to a plastic-rich environment he said.
Moore analyzed a grey goo that Macivor discovered in the nests of one kind of bee Megachile campanulae
Turns out that M. campanulae was occasionally replacing plant resins with polyurethane-based exterior building sealant such as caulking in its brood cells--created in a nest to rear larva.
The researchers also discovered another kind of bee Megachile rotundata an alfalfa leafcutter was using pieces of polyethylene-based plastic bags to construct its brood cells.
Markings showed that the bees chewed the plastic differently than they did leaves suggesting that the insects had collected not incidentally plastic.
and wasps a project involving numerous citizen scientists. The nest boxes are located in Toronto and the surrounding region in backyards community gardens
Herbicide drift was associated also with the declines of three species of herbivores including pea aphids spotted alfalfa aphids
The researchers found more crickets which are considered beneficial because they eat weed seeds in the field edge site.
and Environment did not see a drop in the number of pollinators such as bees in the fields.
However the relatively small size of the research fields limited the researchers'ability to measure the effect on pollinators according to Egan.
That may be because pollinators are very mobile and the spatial scale of our experiment may not be big enough to show any effects Egan said.
#Wasps use ancient aggression genes to create social groupsaggression-causing genes appeared early in animal evolution
Specifically we looked at aggressive behavior in wasps bees fruit flies and mice and found a few genes that are associated consistently with aggression.
The team investigated the expression of aggression genes in the brains and ovaries of paper wasps--Polistes metricus.
Specifically they looked at wasps belonging to different castes including dominant colony-founding queens subordinate colony-founding queens established queens dominant workers and subordinate workers.
The team then compared the wasp results to gene expression data already available in honey bees fruit flies and mice.
We found that in wasps which are primitively social insects aggression genes control the establishment of an individual's dominance over a group said Christina Grozinger professor of entomology and director of the Center for Pollinator Research Penn State.
In contrast in honey bees which are advanced social insects aggression genes control altruistic defensive behavior--for example
In solitary species like fruit flies and mice the same set of aggression genes controls fighting between males over territory.
We found that the most important influence on expression of genes in the brains of paper wasps was external factors such as the season
Can we create hyper-aggressive wasps? This type of question allows us to go beyond correlation between the gene and the behavior and address causation.
Grozinger added If there are hyper-aggressive wasps what effect does that have on wasp society? Story Source:
The above story is provided based on materials by Penn State. The original article was written by Sara Lajeunesse.
Bees and other insects should actually be redundant here as the examined coffee variety Coffea arabica is self-pollinating.
if pollinators have access to the coffee blossoms the cherries were about seven percent heavier
bees and other pollinators ensure better quality. â#Same effect with all cultivation systemsto the surprise of the researchers intensified farming seems to have no negative effect:
Given that much of the landscape is divided into small parcels pollinators birds and bats still could find a suitable habitat with nesting places and from there spread into the plantations.
however they additionally recorded wild bees hoverflies and butterflies. So if honey bee numbers were to decrease as they might in climatically unfavorable years this could reduce the harvest in the sun plantations.
or Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer sensors that fly aboard NASA's Terra and Aqua satellites make daily observations over the huge expanse of Amazon forests.
and in Mexico during the 1980s and 1990s when they studied the effects of the arrival of Africanized bees on native bees.
They found that six honey samples from nine hives in the Campeche region contained soy pollen
#Grasshoppers are what they eat: New method to extract PLANT DNA from grasshopper guts sheds light on plant-insect interactionsgrasshoppers may be small
but the damages they are causing to the U s. agriculture industry are anything but. Every year they feed on crops
Although they pose a major threat grasshopper populations play a positive role in cycling nutrients from decomposing plant matter back into the soil.
A new method to investigate their feeding patterns could be the key to a better understanding of the impact of grasshoppers on plant communities.
and insect species says University of Cincinnati researcher Alina Avanesyan who developed the new protocol while studying grasshopper leaf tissue consumption.
Accurately determining the feeding preferences of grasshoppers can help us to understand the magnitude of plant damage
and consequently whether or not control of grasshoppers is needed in a given area. The method recovers high-quality DNA of ingested plant tissue from grasshopper guts.
This PLANT DNA offers valuable information about grasshopper diets because it holds more data than what can be observed by the naked eye.
Scientists can use it to compare specific feeding patterns between different grasshopper species and uncover behaviors that might lead to intensive crop damage in certain areas.
A detailed description of the dissection and DNA extraction including a video illustrating the dissection technique can be viewed in the February issue of Applications in Plant sciences.
According to Avanesyan With this protocol a researcher can focus on a variety of research questions such as detecting plant-insect interactions determining how long the food has been digested estimating the prevalence of different plants in insect guts exploring the sequence of multiple plant species consumed
The protocol begins with a basic dissection kit used to isolate the grasshopper guts. A DNA extraction is performed then on the gut components which results in a combination of grasshopper and PLANT DNA.
Isolating the PLANT DNA involves a simple polymerase chain reaction or PCR which is used to amplify desired regions of genetic material for further research.
and ultimately better understand the insect food digestion process Avanesyan explains. It opens doors to a completely different research area--insect physiology.
To demonstrate the utility of the protocol Avanesyan successfully amplified the DNA of a noncoding region of a plant chloroplast gene
Results indicated that plant tissue could be detected up to 12 hours after ingestion in nymph M. differentialis and M. bivittatus grasshoppers and adult M. femurrubrum grasshoppers.
For adult M. differentialis grasshoppers which were the largest in size plant tissue was detected up to 22 hours post-ingestion.
Findings from the gut separation technique uncovered interesting details about M. differentialis grasshoppers. They often did not switch between grasses during feeding but instead consumed different plant species sequentially.
The proposed protocol is an effective relatively quick and low-cost method of detecting PLANT DNA from a grasshopper gut and its different sections.
Benefits extend far beyond grasshoppers as it can be adapted to any insect herbivores of interest.
and sustainable methods of managing insect populations making the new gut DNA extraction method a valuable tool for the scientific community.
and physiologically similar says Avanesyan who plans to continue to use the protocol to investigate plant defenses against insect herbivores.
This in conjunction with the 300 percent rise in pollinator-dependent crops requires the industry to manage honey bees like never before;
the NASS negated to count colonies in operation that had five or fewer hives. This change in addition to socioeconomic and political factors contributed to the decline of colony numbers over previous decades.
The Asian citrus psyllid (ACP) can spread the lethal and incurable citrus disease known as huanglongbing (HLB)
In 2011 for the first time entomologists at the University of California Riverside released Tamarixia radiata a wasp that is the natural enemy of the ACP in a citrus grove in Riverside to help control the psyllid.
But is this wasp safe to use? Does its introduction pose any risk to the environment?
Results from Federally mandated tests performed at the University of California Riverside now show that Tamarixia radiata is indeed safe for the environment and poses no undue risk to other insects humans or pets.
Our work demonstrates that Tamarixia radiata is very specific to the target it is being released to kill--the nymphs of the Asian citrus psyllid in this case said Mark Hoddle the director of the Center for Invasive Species Research whose lab performed the tests.
The results are important as the wasp is being used for ACP biological control in Florida Texas the Caribbean Central and South america and Mexico.
To test the safety of Tamarixia different species of native California psyllids were exposed to the wasp in a series of tests.
The tests were designed to give the wasp a choice between ACP and a non-target psyllid speices or there was no choice (that is the wasp was given only access to a non-target species one it had evolved not with).
When given a choice Tamarixia overwhelming attacked ACP the researchers found. In only one instance was a non-target species attacked at very low rates--less than 5 percent Hoddle said.
This was the native pest potato psyllid which spreads a bacterium that causes zebra chip disease.
Native psyllids are hard to find and the native plants they grow on are difficult to culture in the laboratory he said.
and to discover that the Pakistani wasp will be a good natural enemy to use in California for the biological control of ACP.
The Tamarixia larvae will eat the ACP nymphs killing them and emerge as adults about 12 days later.
Adult female Tamarixia also eat other ACP nymphs killing many in the process. Story Source: The above story is provided based on materials by University of California-Riverside.
such as pest controlservices provided by Mother Nature such as pest control from insect-eating bats are affected by market forces like most anything else in the economy a University of Tennessee Knoxville study finds.
In fact by preying on the individual insects that survive the Bt toxin bats may provide the additional service of slowing the evolution of resistance to Bt and other insecticides.
#Organic farms support more species, researchers findon average organic farms support 34%more plant insect and animal species than conventional farms say Oxford university scientists.
'For pollinators such as bees the number of different species was 50%higher on organic farms although it is important to note that the study only looked at'species richness'.'
This effect was weakest in pollinators which may be because pollinators are likely to visit neighbouring farms
and could be affected by pesticides there.''The impact of organic farming on total species richness varied significantly across the data with the average gain in species richness varying between 26%and 43%.
#Beneficial insects, nematodes not harmed by genetically modified, insect-resistant crops, studies showa large body of literature has shown that genetically-modified plants that produce proteins from the bacterium Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt) to protect themselves from insect pests have little to no effect on a wide range of nontarget insects.
However concerns about Bt crops still exist. Now two new studies using more exacting methods show that Bt crops have no negative effects on two beneficial insect predators or on a beneficial entomopathogenic nematode.
In an article in the February 2014 issue of Environmental Entomology called Using Resistant Prey Demonstrates that Bt Plants Producing Cry1ac Cry2ab
and Orius insidiosus researchers used caterpillars that were known to be resistant to Bt proteins and fed them Bt maize and Bt cotton.
They then fed the caterpillars to two common beneficial predatory insects--insidious flower bugs (Orius insidiosus)
and big-eyed bugs (Geocoris punctipes)--for two generations and compared them to another group of predators that consumed caterpillars fed on non-Bt plants.
and fertility of the insect predators in both groups were similar regardless of whether they consumed caterpillars that fed on Bt plants or non-Bt plants.
or Orius insidious two important insect predators that help suppress pest populations on corn cotton
By using caterpillars resistant to the Bt proteins in this study we were able to remove any'host quality effects'that might have led to spurious misinterpretation of the results.
This work demonstrated that the caterpillars consumed the Bt proteins and the predators consumed the Bt proteins
when they fed on the caterpillars but they did not suffer any harm even over multiple generations.
For this study resistant caterpillars were fed Bt broccoli and then exposed to Heterorhabditis bacteriophora a beneficial nematode that preys on insects.
The researchers found that the virulence reproductive potential and time of emergence of the nematodes that consumed Bt-fed caterpillars were affected not significantly compared to nematodes that did not ingest the Bt protein.
This is the first report we are aware of in which a nematode predator has been tested in such detail against a Bt protein Dr. Shelton said.
Together these two studies add to the scientific literature demonstrating that Bt plants can control targeted insect pests
#First African study on biodiversity in genetically modified maize finds insects abundantprevious studies from China Spain
and the United states on genetically modified (GM) rice cotton and maize have concluded that the biodiversity of insects
#Trees diminished resistance to tropical cyclone winds attributed to insect invasionsguam experiences more tropical cyclones than any other state
Invasions of two invasive insects (Aulacaspis yasumatsui in 2003 and Chilades pandava in 2005) were found to be responsible for the 100%mortality of the intact portions of the trees'snapped stems during the 5 years after Typhoon Chaba.
These bats of which there are almost 200 species eat a variety of foods including insects frogs lizards fruit nectar and even blood.
#Single gene separates queen from workersscientists have identified how a single gene in honey bees separates the queens from the workers.
and transport pollen back to the hive. While workers have these distinct features queens do not.
The research team was able to confirm this by isolating and silencing Ubx the target gene.
which are in the same family as honey bees queens have pollen baskets similar to workers.
These include solitary leaf cutter bees communal sweat bees and social bumble bees. The pollen baskets are much less elaborate
We conclude that the evolution of pollen baskets is a major innovation among social insects and is tied directly to more-complex social behaviors.
Future research by Huang may pursue investigating how bees could be improved to become better pollinators.
DDT--used in the United states for insect control in crops and livestock and to combat insect-borne diseases like malaria--was introduced as a pesticide during WWII.
Rutgers scientists--the first to link a specific chemical compound to Alzheimer's disease--believe that research into how DDT
#Common crop pesticides kill honeybee larvae in the hivefour pesticides commonly used on crops to kill insects
and fungi also kill honeybee larvae within their hives according to Penn State and University of Florida researchers.
or inactive chemical commonly used as a pesticide additive--is highly toxic to honeybee larvae.
We found that four of the pesticides most commonly found in beehives kill bee larvae said Jim Frazier professor of entomology Penn State.
when the pesticides occur in combinations within the hive. Since pesticide safety is judged almost entirely on adult honeybee sensitivity to individual pesticides
and also does not consider mixtures of pesticides the risk assessment process that the Environmental protection agency uses should be changed.
According to Frazier the team's previous research demonstrated that forager bees bring back to the hive an average of six different pesticides on the pollen they collect.
which they then feed to honeybee larvae. To examine the effects of four common pesticides--fluvalinate coumaphos chlorothalonil
and chlorpyrifos--on bee larvae the researchers reared honeybee larvae in their laboratory. They then applied the pesticides alone
or in concert to create a toxic environment for honeybee growth and development. The researchers also investigated the effects of NMP on honeybee larvae by adding seven concentrations of the chemical to a pollen-derived royal jelly diet.
NMP is used to dissolve pesticides into formulations that then allow the active ingredients to spread
Among the four pesticides honeybee larvae were most sensitive to chlorothalonil. They also were affected negatively by a mixture of chlorothalonil with fluvalinate.
According to Chris Mullin professor of entomology Penn State these pesticides may directly poison honeybee larvae
Chronic exposure to pesticides during the early life stage of honeybees may contribute to their inadequate nutrition
and are found to persist within beehives for about five years. Chlorothalonil is a broad-spectrum agricultural fungicide that is often applied to crops in bloom
when honeybees are present for pollination because it is deemed currently safe to bees. Chlorpyrifos is used a widely organophosphate in crop management.
and chloropyrifos individually or in mixtures have statistically significant impacts on honeybee larval survivorship Mullin said.
This is the first study to report serious toxic effects on developing honeybee larvae of dietary pesticides at concentrations that currently occur in hives.
While we have found that NMP contributes to honeybee larvae mortality the overall role of these inactive ingredients in pollinator decline remains to be determined.
while watching a David Attenborough video describing the mold insects and other crud that resides in the plodding animal's thick fur.
Among the fur fauna are small pyralid moths with a particular attachment to the sloth's near-weekly trip to poop on the ground.
When the sloth squats to do its business some female pyralid moths will emerge from the sloth fur to lay their eggs in the sloth's dung.
The moth larvae then eat their way out of the sloth waste emerging as moths that flutter back up into the tree overhead.
The moth is strictly dependent on the sloth in each step of its life. That made us wonder
if the sloth was making this dangerous trip for the moth because the moth provides something relatively important to the sloth.
In fact Pauli's research shows that the moths may give their all to the sloth in return for nursery for larvae and shelter and mating grounds for adults.
Sloths live on the nutritional red line Pauli says. Judging from their diet--which is all leaves from the tree they live in--they shouldn't be able to maintain even the slow lifestyle that makes them
and nitrogen released by fungi breaking down dead pyralid moths. More moths more nitrogen more algae (which may also provide camouflage to the treed sloths protecting them from flying predators.
And the broad team of researchers--Pauli tapped entomologists limnologists and bacteriologists--found the algae in samples taken from the stomachs of three-toed sloths.
so slow at it that the moths can stay ahead of the claws. So it's not grooming.
Probably to lend the moths a three-toed leg up. And that according to Pauli is another lesson in the complex and unusual way organisms as different as a tiny moth
and a seemingly oversized tree-confined mammal need each other to get along. There's some grandeur in these systems of mutualism he says.
Insects frogs lizards fruit nectar and even blood. The bats'skulls of today reflect this dietary diversity.
#Increase in hemlock forest offsetting effect of invasive hemlock woolly adelgid for nowdespite the accumulating destruction of a nonnative invasive insect called the hemlock woolly adelgid hemlock forests in the eastern United states appear to have held their own
and succession in the eastern U s. may have offset the negative impacts of the adelgid at the regional scale.
The study Changes in the regional abundance of hemlock associated with the invasion of hemlock woolly adelgid was published recently in the journal Biological Invasions.
A native of Japan the hemlock woolly adelgid was detected first In virginia in the 1950s and for decades remained a primarily urban pest.
Hemlock trees in the United states do not have natural defenses against hemlock woolly adelgid which coupled with a lack of natural predators has resulted in high levels of tree mortality in the 18 states where it is known to have spread particularly in southern states.
Trotter believes that this study which is based on forest data through 2007 may have caught hemlock at a tipping point in the balance between losses from hemlock woolly adelgid and increases due to forest regrowth.
Even if there were continued increases in hemlock abundance in northern climates where cold temperatures slow damages from hemlock woolly adelgid the loss of trees in the south is a loss to the species Trotter said.
Nonnative forest insects like the hemlock woolly adelgid are devastating on many levels because trees are so important to a region's culture
and the Forest Products Lab. Forest Service research is working hard to more aggressively control nonnative insects
#The Moth versus the Crowd: Tracking an alien invader of conker trees using people poweran army of citizen scientists has helped the professionals understand how a tiny'alien'moth is attacking the UK's conker (horse-chestnut trees
and showed that naturally-occurring pest controlling wasps are not able to restrict the moth's impact.
The study's conclusions are published this week in the open access scientific journal PLOS ONE.
No bigger than a grain of rice the horse-chestnut leaf-mining moth has spread rapidly through England and Wales since its arrival in London in 2002.
The caterpillars of the moth'tunnel'through the leaves of conker trees causing them to turn brown and autumnal in appearance even in the height of summer.
'The results show that over the last decade the moth has spread from London to reach almost all of England and Wales.
Investigating the data further the scientific team concluded that it takes just three years from the first sighting of the moth in a particular location to maximum levels of damage to the horse-chestnut trees being recorded.
In a follow-up experiment many of the citizen scientists including hundreds of school children followed instructions to MJOP1 rear the moth by sealing the infested leaves in plastic bags
and waiting for the insects to emerge. The results reveal that the tiny pest controllers('parasitiod'wasps) that prey upon the caterpillars are not present in high enough numbers to control the moths.
Dr Michael Pocock an ecologist at the Centre for Ecology & Hydrology and lead author of the research paper said This is the sort of science that anyone can Do by taking part the public are doing real science
and then see insects--the adult moths or their pest controllers--emerge but making these discoveries was a valuable contribution to understanding why some animals become so invasive.
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