and insects would have an effect on the tree species'said Professor Rob Freckleton of Sheffield University who co-led the study.'
but eliminating insects didn't. Ours is the first study to unpick the effects of the different natural enemies.'
Instead management practices focused on maintaining the complex web of ecological interactions among coffee plantation organisms--including insects fungi plants birds
and abundance of beneficial insects and opens the plantations to winds that help disperse coffee rust spores according to U-M ecologist John Vandermeer
#Pathogenic plant virus jumps to honeybees, may explain bee population declinea viral pathogen that typically infects plants has been found in honeybees
The results of our study provide the first evidence that honeybees exposed to virus-contaminated pollen can also be infected
We already know that honeybees Apis melllifera can transmit TRSV when they move from flower to flower likely spreading the virus from one plant to another Chen adds.
Toxic viral cocktails appear to have a strong link with honey bee Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD) a mysterious malady that abruptly wiped out entire hives across the United states
Bee Virus (DWV) Black Queen Cell Virus (BQCV) and Sacbrood Virus (SBV) are known other causes of honeybee viral disease.
However unlike honeybees the mite-associated TRSV was restricted to their gastric cecum indicating that the mites likely facilitate the horizontal spread of TRSV within the hive without becoming diseased themselves.
The fact that infected queens lay infected eggs convinced these scientists that TRSV could also be transmitted vertically from the queen mother to her offspring.
Thus they call for increased surveillance of potential host-jumping events as an integrated part of insect pollinator management programs.
#Exposure to pesticides results in smaller worker beesexposure to a widely used pesticide causes worker bumblebees to grow less
which is used on flowering crops to prevent insect damage reduces the size of individual bees produced by a colony.
The researchers Gemma Baron Dr Nigel Raine and Professor Mark Brown from the School of Biological sciences at Royal Holloway worked with colonies of bumblebees in their laboratory and exposed half of them to the pesticide.
and weighing bees on micro-scales as well as monitoring the number of queens and male bees produced by the colony.
We already know that larger bumblebees are more effective at foraging. Our result revealing that this pesticide causes bees to hatch out at a smaller size is of concern as the size of workers produced in the field is likely to be a key component of colony success with smaller bees being less efficient at collecting nectar
The study is the first to examine the impact of pyrethroid pesticides across the entire lifecycle of bumblebees.
Bumblebees are essential to our food chain so it's critical we understand how wild bees might be impacted by the chemicals we are putting into the environment.
We know we have to protect plants from insect damage but we need to find a balance
The two female castes workers and queens are diploid like humans. They contain two copies of each chromosome.
and feeding like the workers they are responsible for mating with queens so that the next generation of honey bees can be produced within a colony.
Without strong fit drones the chance of successful matings with queens could be compromised severely.''Recent studies mainly coming out of the United states suggest that queen failure is a major cause of colony death.
Early death of queens could be the result of queens not obtaining sufficient quantity and quality of sperm from drones during mating.
Honey and pollinationhoney bees as all insect pollinators provide crucial ecosystem and economic service which is relevant for our food security.
Annually in Europe more than 24 million honey bee colonies contribute to the production of 130000 tons of honey
#Bigheaded fossil flies track major ecological revolutionsimon Fraser University's Bruce Archibald and Rolf Mathewes are part of a team of biologists including Christian Kehlmaier from Germany's Senkenberg
Natural history Collections that has discovered three new extinct fossil species of bigheaded flies. According to their research published recently by The Canadian Entomologist these fossils show their early evolution parallels an ecological revolution one that formed the character of our modern natural communities.
The three new species of fossil bigheaded flies are members of the living family Pipunculidae.
Bigheaded flies are a group of bizarre insects whose round heads are covered almost entirely by their bulging compound eyes
which they use to hunt for mainly leafhoppers and planthoppers renowned common garden insect pests says Archibald.
The newly discovered species were preserved in Eocene epoch fossil beds that are 49 million to 52 million years old
By the time of these flies in the Eocene however forests had diversified again but this time with many new kinds of flowering plants that are familiar to us today such as birches maples and many others.
Along with these new rich forests came an expanding diversity of pollinators and herbivorous insects and with them diversification of their insect predators including these bigheaded flies.
With these new discoveries we see that the early history of these oddly shaped insect predators provides a part of the puzzle revealing the broad ecological-evolutionary revolution of expanding predator-prey relationships
and increasing biodiversity during the formation of new ecosystems says Archibald. Story Source: The above story is provided based on materials by Simon Fraser University.
#Ants protect acacia plants against pathogensthe biological term symbiosis refers to what economists and politicians usually call a win-win situation:
The mutualistic association between acacia plants and the ants that live on them is an excellent example:
The ants return this favor by protecting the plants against herbivores. Researchers at the Max Planck Institute for Chemical Ecology in Jena Germany have now found that ants also keep harmful leaf pathogens in check.
The presence of ants greatly reduces bacterial abundance on surfaces of leaves and has a visibly positive effect on plant health.
Study results indicate that symbiotic bacteria colonizing the ants inhibit pathogen growth on the leaves.
Myrmecophytes are plants which live in a symbiotic relationship with ants. The acacia species Acacia hindsii which is native to tropical dry forests in Central america is such a myrmecophyte.
Its inhabitants are ants of the genus Pseudomyrmex. The ants depend completely on their host plants for nectar
and the food bodies rich in proteins and lipids which they require. The acacia also provides shelter the so-called domatia in the hollows of its swollen thorns.
In return for room and board mutualistic Pseudomyrmex ferrugineus ants become bodyguards protecting their host against herbivores and competing plants.
However some ants also benefit from the plant's services without giving anything in return such as the parasitic ant species Pseudomyrmex gracilis.
Scientists at the Max Planck Institute for Chemical Ecology have looked now more deeply into the insect-plant interaction asking
whether the tiny bodyguards also provide protection against microbial pathogens. They compared the leaves of acacia plants
which were inhabited by either mutualistic or parasitic ants to leaves from which ants had been removed. Intriguingly the leaves of acacia colonized by parasitic ants showed more leaf damage from herbivores
and microbial pathogens than did the leaves that had mutualistic ants. The presence of the right symbiotic partner seemed to have a positive effect on the plant's health.
Analysis of the surfaces of the leaves revealed that the number of plant pathogens as well as of necrotic plant tissues increased considerably
when mutualistic Pseudomyrmex ferrugineus ants were absent. These plants also showed strong immune responses in the form of an increased concentration of salicylic acid a plant hormone
which regulates defense against pathogens. Detailed analysis of the bacterial composition on the surfaces of the leaves suggested that the presence of mutualistic ants changed the bacterial populations and reduced harmful pathogens.
Although far less pronounced this effect could also be observed in parasitic ants. How antimicrobial protection is transferred from ants to plant is still unclear.
Chilean researcher Marcia Gonzã¡lez-Teuber first author of the publication suspected that microorganisms associated with the ants might play a role.
Because acacia leaves are touched mainly by ants'legs she extracted the legs of mutualistic and parasitic ants and tested the effect of the extracts on the growth of bacterial pathogens in the lab. Plant pathogen Pseudomonas syringae was sensitive to the application of leg extracts of both ant species
and its growth was inhibited. In the next step the scientist isolated and identified bacteria from the legs of the ants.
In lab tests bacterial strains of the genera Bacillus Lactococcus Pantoea and Burkholderia effectively inhibited the growth of Pseudomonas bacteria isolated from infected acacia leaves.
Interestingly some of the bacterial genera associated with the ants are known to produce antibiotic substances.
The Jena researchers have added thus another level of interaction to the symbiosis between ants and their host plants.
Such mutualistic relationships are much more complex than previously thought. In the future we will have to include bacteria
and other microorganisms in our considerations says Wilhelm Boland head of the Department of Bioorganic Chemistry at the Max Planck Institute.
Studies on symbiotic relationships between ants and myrmecophytic plants should not overlook the role of bacterial partners that help the ants protect their plants.
The researchers found that the electrostatic properties of the glue that coats spider webs causes them to reach out to grab all charged particles from pollen and pollutants to flying insects.
which may enable insects to spot the webs with their antennae'e-sensors'.'The study published in Naturwissenschaften shows how a quirk of physics causes webs to move towards all airborne objects regardless of
This explains how webs are able to collect small airborne particles so efficiently and why they spring towards insects.
Many insects are able to detect small electrical disturbances including bees that can sense the electric fields of different flowers and other bees.'
'Pretty much all flying insects should be capable of sensing electrical disturbances'said Professor Vollrath.''Their antennae act as'e-sensors
'when the tips are connected to the body by insulating materials meaning the charge at the tip will be different from the rest of the insect.
As insects approach charged objects the tips of their antennae will move by a small amount
whether insects would be able to sense them before the web snaps out to grab them.
Either way it is clear that electrostatic charges play an important role in the insect world.'
#And that is how the desert locust lost its memorythe desert locust (a type of grasshopper) much like Dr Jekyll/Mr Hyde goes from being an innocuous solitary-living individual to become a voracious gregarious animal
The research provides new insights on how the environment can affect gene expression and on insects'extraordinaire adaptability.
and memory abilities to suit different life stages in a remarkable show of insects'survival skills.
and beneficial insects birds and microbes that consume methane a greenhouse gas that contributes to climate change.
and elsewhere in Massachusetts including flowering dates butterfly flight times and migratory bird arrivals. Founded in 1839 Boston University is recognized an internationally institution of higher education and research.
#EU policy is driving up demand for pollination faster than honeybee numbersresearch conducted by the University of Reading's Centre for Agri-Environmental Research
and the Insect Pollinators Initiative Crops project indicates that demand for pollination services has risen five times as fast as the number of colonies across Europe.
The study led by Professor Simon Potts compared the number of available honeybee colonies in 41 European countries with their demands for pollination services in the years 2005 and 2010.
although the total number of honeybee colonies increased in some European countries the demands for the pollination services supplied by these pollinators has increased much faster due to the increasing demand for biofuel feedstocks.
and Italy honeybee stocks were found to be insufficient to supply these pollination services alone.
Dr Tom Breeze who conducted the research said This study has shown that EU biofuel policy has had an unforeseen consequence in making us more reliant upon wild pollinators like bumblebees and hoverflies to meet demands forthis
Adding The results don't show that wild pollinators actually do all the work but they do show we have less security
which the study suggests has now less than 25%of the honeybee colonies it needs. The only country with less security is the Republic of Moldova
if taken as a continuous region where colonies could move freely Europe as a whole only has two thirds of the honeybee colonies it needs with a deficit of over 13.6 million colonies.
Many of the most important crops in Europe such as rapeseed sunflower soybeans apples and strawberries benefit from pollination by insects.
and other organisations to better understand the role of different pollinators in European agriculture. Story Source The above story is provided based on materials by Pensoft Publishers.
4 million years ago mainly ate tiger nuts (grass bulbs) supplemented with the odd grasshopper and worm.
The study published in the journal PLOS ONE also suggests that these early hominins may have sought additional nourishment from fruits and invertebrates like worms and grasshoppers.
But now Thomas Peacock an associate professor of mechanical engineering at MIT has teamed with researchers from the Ecole Centrale de Lyon the Ecole Normale Superieure de Lyon
These are the most powerful internal waves discovered thus far in the ocean Peacock says. These are skyscraper-scale waves.
They are the lumbering giants of the ocean Peacock says. The team's large-scale laboratory experiments on the generation of such waves used a detailed topographic model of the Luzon Strait's seafloor mounted in a 50-foot-diameter rotating tank in Grenoble France
It's an important missing piece of the puzzle in climate modeling Peacock says. Right now global climate models are not able to capture these processes he says
These waves are potentially the key mechanism for transferring heat from the upper ocean to the depths Peacock says so the focus of the research was to determine exactly how the largest of these waves as revealed through satellite imagery of the Luzon Strait region are generated.
The existence of internal waves in oceans has been known for well over a century Peacock says but they have remained poorly understood because of the difficulty of observations Among the new techniques that have helped to propel the field forward is the use of satellite data:
From 15 years of data you can filter out the noise Peacock explains: Many locations such as the Luzon Strait generate these waves in a steady predictable way as tides flow over submerged ridges and through narrow channels.
Internal waves can bring nutrients up from ocean depths Peacock says. Matthew Alford an associate professor of oceanography at the University of Washington who was involved in the related field studies for this project says The strong forcing
The research carried out by Peacock and a team of eight other researchers was funded by the ONR the Centre Nationale de Recherche Scientifique and the Agence Nationale de la Recherche in France and the MIT-France Program.
#Novel attract-and-kill approach could help tackle Argentine antsafter being introduced inadvertently in the United states from South america Argentine ants have invaded successfully urban agricultural and natural settings nationwide.
In urban California The argentine ant is among the primary pest ants. For example this particular species of ants makes up 85 percent of ants sampled by commercial pest control companies in just the Greater San diego Area.
Entomologists at the University of California Riverside have developed now a pheromone-assisted technique as an economically viable approach to maximize the efficacy of conventional sprays targeting the invasive Argentine ant.
They supplemented insecticide sprays with (Z)- 9-hexadecenal a pheromone compound attractive to ants and were able to divert Argentine ants from their trails and nest entrances.
Lured by the pheromone the ants were exposed eventually to the insecticide residue and killed. Study results appeared Dec 23 2013 in the online fast track edition of the Journal of Economic Entomology.
Our experiments with fipronil and bifenthrin sprays indicate that the overall kill of these insecticides on Argentine ant colonies is improved substantially--by 57 to 142 percent--by incorporating (Z)- 9-hexadecenal in the sprays said Dong-Hwan Choe an assistant professor of entomology
and the research project leader whose lab focuses on urban entomology insect behavior and chemical ecology.
According to Choe's research team the current attract -and-kill approach once it is implemented successfully in practical pest management programs could potentially provide maximum control efficacy with reduced amount of insecticides applied in the environment.
Given the amount of insecticides applied today to urban settings for Argentine ant control and the impact of these insecticides on urban waterways it is critical to develop alternative integrated pest management strategies
These studies however only explored the use of the pheromone to disrupt the foraging of Argentine ants.
and low-dose pheromone to attract ants Choe said. Our ultimate goal is to minimize the impact of pest damages on urban life with at the same time no
#New study may aid rearing of stink bugs for biological controlmany people think of stink bugs as pests especially as the brown marmorated stink bugs spreads throughout the U s
. However certain stink bugs are beneficial such as Podisus nigrispinus (Dallas) a predatory stink bug that is considered an important biological control agent for various insect pests of cotton soybean tomato
Now a new study appearing in Annals of the Entomological Society of America called Effect of Egg Rearing Temperature and Storage Time on the Biological Characteristics of the Predatory Stink Bug Podisus
nigrispinus (Hemiptera: Pentatomidae) may aid companies that rear these beneficial insects and the growers who use them in the field.
This is the first study to examine the storage technique for the predator P. nigrispinus to improve its mass rearing in laboratory conditions without compromising the quality of insects produced.
Our goal was to evaluate the effect of low temperatures on the biological characteristics of P. nigrispinus with the aim of optimizing mass-rearing programs for this potential biological control agent the authors wrote.
It also increases the availability of insects for release in the field at the earliest opportunity.
and insects preserved for all time in amber. The flowing tree sap covered the specimens
The pollen of these flowers appeared to be said sticky Poinar suggesting it was carried by a pollinating insect
New associations between these small flowering plants and various types of insects and other animal life resulted in the successful distribution
A stylish new possibility for urban beekeepersin recent years, honeybee populations have been on the decline.
In fact, last march, the United nations Environmental Program issued a report dubbing honeybee disappearance a global phenomenon.
Philips, the Dutch home-electronics company, wants to join in the trend unveiled The Urban Beehive at this year's Dutch Design Week as part of their Microbial Home project
he would chase after the shadowy insects swarming around the glowing street lamps. The child of a middle-class family--his father was an engineer,
And the bugs are no longer there, those beautiful things have gone, he said. The canal's water where he fished
Today, the boy who once chased bugs under Beijing â¢s streetlamps is innovating Chinese environmentalism by giving people and businesses
Solar-powered bug killerwhat do you get when you combine two light bulbs, a bucket of water, and a solar panel?
According to Agrisolar, a lot of dead bugs. The company is capturing the sun's energy to kill nocturnal insects that feast on crops.
By day, a solar panel charges a battery. By night, the battery (set on a timer) powers a pair of patented light bulbs that lure insects in with one attractive wavelength
and disorient them with another. Within a foot of the bulb, the dizzy bugs drop, falling to their watery deaths inside a bucket.
No zapping or chemicals required. Research suggests solar panels themselves can beckon bugs to their doom,
but Agrisolar relies on wavelengths between 361 and 368 nanometers. The company which is headquartered in Colorado
but conducts most of its testing in China, says some farmers have reported insect reductions of up to 90 percent.
An organic blueberry farmer in New jersey says it even works on caterpillars. I wouldn't expect caterpillars to crawl into the bucket,
but perhaps as moths they would fly toward the light. Agrisolar has installed 100,000 systems already (mostly in China),
testing its efficacy on farms and orchards that grow rice, peaches, corn, strawberries, tomatoes, oranges, coffee and other produce.
Our state-of-the-art insect control systems have seen great success in the Chinese agricultural market, which has allowed us to grow our revenues very quickly.
a bug's life Farmigo: a social network for fresh, cheap food Weed killer causes new cancer fears;
Super bug bacteria in meat and poultry, study saysif you grab chicken or some other meat from the grocery store,
you have a one in four chance of grabbing one that is tainted with a super bug.
The researchers suggested that the super bug likely made its way into the food chain because farmers cram animals into a packed farm
Light technology can combat superbugs A universal vaccine for superbugs is possible Researchers discover anti-pathogenic drugs to treat superbugs War against superbugs:
A coating that can kill MRSA upon contact The fight for life against superbugs Scientists can shut down a superbug's CPU
LEARN FROM THE TERMITES The Eastgate Centre is a massive retail and office building that takes up half a city block in the sweltering confines of Harare,
Architect Mick Pearce looked at the way termites built their tower-like earthen mounds, which rise like crooked fingers from the country savannah,
The termites would otherwise die in the stifling desert heat. The construction of their mounds employs an architectural system that captures desert breezes from above ground
The design helps the termites regulate the temperature in a region with wild weather fluctuations.
Could fireflies replace LED lighting? Dressed to kill, one atom at a time Nanotubes development could double battery life Nano-advances behind new architectural products Scientists create functioning transistor from a single atom
But man is that miniscule mound of gray matter finely tuned as the winged pollinator's mission control center.
Simpler organisms such as social insects have advanced surprisingly cognitive abilities Dr. James Marshall of the University of Sheffield says.
making them factories for producing insect pheromones. Pheromones, those chemicals produced by animals and released into the environment, are used by moths for finding mates.
Synthetic pheromones--which can disrupt pheromone communication in insect pests--have been used widely by farmers for decades,
Science explains, to trap insects or confuse them enough so they can t breed. As pesticides, pheromones are nontoxic and biodegradable,
and small amounts (just tens of grams per hectare) are needed to be effective--making them an environmentally-friendly alternative to traditional pesticides for trapping bugs.
But the commercial production of large amounts of synthetic pheromones requires the use of harmful chemicals (such as neurotoxins hexane
Sweden, created a plant factory for producing moth pheromone: They isolated four key genes involved in the production of natural sex pheromones of two moths:
the bird cherry ermine moth (Yponomeuta evonymella) and the orchard ermine moth (Yponomeuta padella. In the wild, females emit these pheromones to attract male suitors,
Science explains. Genes that code for pheromone biosynthesis were injected into the tobacco plant Nicotiana benthamiana via bacteria cultures (pictured.
By doing so, the team got the tobacco plants to express genes for moth pheromone production.
Their plant-derived compounds were quite effective at trapping moths in the field--attracting on average 130 male bugs per trap,
Right now, the team still has to prepare baits for trapping insects using their plant-derived pheromone components.
Wilson-Rich completed his Ph d. in honeybee health in 2005. In 2006, honeybees started disappearing.
We don't even find dead bodies, and it's bizarre. Researchers still do not know what's causing it,
There is a reason urban beekeepers take care to keep their beehives out of sight. Wilson-Rich wants to change that:
The way that urban beekeeping currently operates is that the beehives are hidden quite. it's not
or from volunteers of the Beekeepers Club Inc. Each hive is checked approximately every 10 to 14 days by the MCRH,
and monitoring the hives. Å Our concept is different to a lot of other urban beekeeping movements:
Å By placing hives on the roof spaces of cafes, restaurants, hotels and individual gardens in and around Melbourne,
The couple s plan is to have a hive in every suburb and create a network of people interacting
and their hives for free by raising funds and asking local businesses to sponsor a hive
and rolling out beehives all over Melbourne, Â she says. Since launching in November 2010, popularity for the MCRH project has grown rapidly;
and/or sponsoring a hive. But despite this success, Kwiatkowski explains that the business of beekeeping is not a lucrative one.
 Community beekeeping The MCRH currently looks after 40 hives (approximately 2. 4 million bees) located across 18 suburbs in Melbourne.
The hives are looked after by hosts; which include 18 local businesses and six residents who live within a 5-10 km radius of the city s central business district.
Honey bees often get mistaken for the European wasp. The two behave and want totally different things,
This is a big problem as the European wasp is very aggressive and gives our poor honey bee a bad name.
If you are thinking of hosting a beehive, you should check local council regulations on keeping bees as they vary from shire to shire.
if you are keeping a beehive in Australia, you are required to be registered with the Department of Primary Industries (DPI),
and Queen of the Sun Become involved, donate, purchase local honey or sponsor a hive.
View the photo gallery on Smartplanet. Photos: Lachie Mathison
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