#Slippery bark protects trees from pine beetle attacktrees with smoother bark are better at repelling attacks by mountain pine beetles
The tiny beetles which are about the size of a grain of rice bore into the pine bark.
which pushes the beetles back out of the tree. Large-scale and continuous beetle attacks can kill the tree.
We thought the beetles were either choosing to avoid the smooth surface or they just couldn't hang onto it.
To determine which was the case the researchers tested how well the beetles could hold onto different bark textures.
They placed each of 22 beetles on a rough patch of bark and on a smooth patch.
They timed how long the beetle could stay on each surface before falling. Twenty-one of the 22 beetles were able to cling to the rough bark until the test ended after five minutes.
But all of the beetles fell from the smooth bark in less than a minute. The results--especially combined with the findings of a second study also recently published by the research team--provide information that may be useful to land managers who are trying to keep public parks and other relatively small forested areas healthy.
In the second study published online in the journal Oecologia Ferrenberg Mitton and Jeffrey Kane of Humboldt State university in California found that a second physical characteristic of a tree also helps predict how resistant the pine is to beetle infestation.
The number of resin ducts--which is related to the trees'ability to pitch out the beetles--is counted easily by taking a small core of the tree.
when mitigating properties to resist beetles. This contradicts the approach that has been historically common for fire management Ferrenberg said.
But if you want to defend a small amount of land against bark beetles that may not be the best strategy.
The new species previously unknown to science include 38 different ants 12 fishes 14 plants eight beetles two spiders one reptile and one amphibian.
In addition Academy scientists discovered a new genus of beetle and a previously unidentified genus of sea fan.
and other life forms there are still many things to discover closer to Home in 2013 Academy scientists discovered two new plant species and eight new beetles from Mexico.
According to Sokolov these miniscule ground beetles remain largely uninvestigated. Prior to his recent discoveries there were only two other species from two different genera described from Mexico.
These beetles rarely emerge and are so tiny that they have gone largely unnoticed. These types of beetles live all over the world including here in California
but are very difficult to collect says Dr. Dave Kavanaugh Senior Curator of Entomology at the Academy.
Then once you have found the beetles and get them back to the lab it takes a steady hand to dissect them and tediously compare each specimen under a microscope.
The study of these beetles illustrates how isolation and slight changes in habitat can influence the evolutionary process.
These beetles are blind flightless and don't move around very much yet they are found in nearly every corner of the world says Kavanaugh.
#Integrated pest management for billbugs in orchardgrasstwo weevil species the bluegrass billbug and the hunting billbug have caused widespread economic damage to orchardgrass a cool season grass that is cultivated throughout the United states as a high
However a new article in the open-access Journal of Integrated Pest Management called Ecology Taxonomy and Pest Management of Billbugs (Coleoptera:
Curculionidae) in Orchardgrass of Virginia presents an overview of the biology of orchardgrass and its associated billbug pests and reviews the control options for these pests.
In Resistance to Bt Corn by Western Corn Rootworm (Coleoptera: Chrysomelidae) in the U s. Corn belt Drs.
Aaron Gassmann (Iowa State university) Michael Gray (University of Illinois) Eileen Cullen (University of Wisconsin) and Bruce Hibbard (University of Missouri) examine why Bt corn has been more effective against the European corn borer
Competition also increases trees'risk to bark beetles and diseases and subsequently leads to a buildup of dead fuels.
If the stand has experienced high mortality caused by bark beetles it can be thinned more heavily without sacrificing timber biomass or volume increment and plant diversity.
#Bait research focused on outsmarting destructive beetleuniversity of Alberta researchers are closing in on developing an effective bait to get ahead of the destructive spread of mountain pine beetle
The compounds are providing insight into how the beetles swarm in destructive numbers in the Canadian boreal forest including Alberta.
The mountain pine beetle has killed lodgepole pine forests in the Western United states British columbia the Northwest territories and Alberta and according to other U of A research could spread east to the Maritimes.
Newer to the beetle's list is the jack pine tree and Erbilgin's research focuses on developing a bait that can be used potentially to monitor beetle activity specifically in jack pine forests in Alberta and other provinces.
which visual and chemical cues would combine to attract high numbers of beetles. Trap trees are used to concentrate
and removed along with the beetles. The mountain pine beetle is the most damaging forest insect in North america
In fact the beetle has attacked large swaths of jack pine in eastern Alberta close to the Saskatchewan border Erbilgin noted.
The bait tested in Grande Prairie lodgepole forests works by attracting the beetles to traps.
Right now we don't know how efficient currently available commercial baits will be in catching beetles in jack pine forest as they were developed to catch the beetle in lodgepole pine forests Erbilgin said.
Pheromones are essential for the mountain pine beetle to be able to spread and thrive so we wanted to explore how we might use that to stop them Erbilgin said.
The U of A study published recently in New Phytologist investigated the tree chemical compounds that play critical roles in the beetle's pheromone production and attraction in both their established lodgepole pine host and in the newer jack pine host.
The study revealed that the beetles emit the same pheromones from both tree species but researchers found that the females in the jack pine tree emitted more trans-verbenol a pheromone that initiates the beetle aggregation on host trees.
while sending out pheromone signals for more beetles to join the aggregation. Without this initial chemical signalling the beetles couldn't aggregate on the same tree Erbilgin noted.
Beetle attacks also induce a release of a volatile tree chemical 3-carene. Field tests conducted by Erbilgin
#Economic assessment of mountain pine beetle timber salvagea recently published study by U s. Forest Service researchers evaluates potential revenues from harvesting standing timber killed by mountain pine beetle in the western
--which have the largest volume of standing dead timber--would not generate positive net revenues by salvaging beetle-killed timber.
Center were asked to evaluate the circumstances under which salvaging pine beetle-killed timber would be cost-effective.
and Colorado--two states heavily affected by the mountain pine beetle--to evaluate the effects of efforts to encourage
In fact in some regions the magnitude of carbon uptake or release due to the effects of specific animal species or groups of animals--such as the pine beetles devouring forests in western North america--can rival the impact of fossil fuel
For example pine bark beetles have killed recently trees over more area of U s. forests than wildfires including in areas with little previous experience managing aggressive pests.
That has permitted population explosions of tree-killing bark beetles in forests that were shielded previously by winter cold
Drought conditions appear to decrease host tree defenses against spruce beetles which attack the inner layers of bark feeding
Spruce beetles like their close relatives mountain pine beetles are attacking large areas of coniferous forests across the West.
Spruce beetles range from Alaska to Arizona and live in forests of Engelmann spruce and subalpine fir trees in Colorado.
and tree defenses like pitching beetles out of tree interiors with resin were likely high.
The area of high-elevation forests affected by spruce beetles is growing in the West Hart said.
In 2012 U s. Forest Service surveys indicated that more area was under attack by spruce beetles than mountain pine beetles in the Southern Rocky mountains
In the short term trees killed by spruce beetles will lead to less water use by trees
But in the long term the absence of the trees killed by beetles may lead to less persistence of snow and earlier runoff.
Famous weevils moths and borer beetles live in a very comfortable environment when in the middle of a silo or warehouse fill with grains.
most likely beetles as bees would not evolve for another 100 million years. Story Source:
Cotton bollworm a pest that attacks crop plants was more sensitive to OAIP-1 than termites and mealworms
and colors derived from beetles. Speakers at the 246th National Meeting & Exposition of the American Chemical Society recently described how natural colors used centuries ago are making a resurgence in response to consumer preferences manufacturers'needs
Coffee beans around the world however are threatened by the pervasive beetle. The insect burrows into the beans
A'not-so-glamorous'experimentto quantify the benefit birds provide to plantations the researchers first calculated coffee bean yield--the amount of healthy beetle-free beans that could be harvested--of infected plants that were housed in bird-proof cages
versus yield from infected plants in the open where birds were eating the beetles. Next they needed to confirm
which species of birds were eating the beetles and whether the birds required forest to survive.
For example warming generally stimulates insect herbivory at higher latitudes as seen in outbreaks of the Mountain pine beetle (Dendroctonus ponderosae) that has destroyed large areas of pine forest in the US Pacific Northwest.
#Beetles modify emissions of greenhouse gases from cow patscattle contribute to global warming by burping
But now researchers from the University of Helsinki have found that beetles living in cow pats may reduce emissions of the key greenhouse gas--methane.
Now researchers from the University of Helsinki have found that beetles living in the cow pats may reduce emissions of methane.
In fact there are probably as many beetle species living in dung as there are bird species on this planet.
Of the dung beetles living in Northern europe most spend their entire lives within the dung pats.
We believe that these beetles exert much of their impact by simply digging around in the dung.
and the tunneling by beetles seems to aerate the pats. This will have a major impact on how carbon escapes from cow pats into the atmosphere.
If the beetles can keep those methane emissions down well then we should obviously thank them
but the implications also quite worrying says Eleanor Slade a researcher commuting between teams working on dung beetles in both Helsinki and Oxford.
When you combine the current increase in meat consumption around the world with the steep declines in many dung beetle species overall emissions from cattle farming can only increase.
Since this is a growing issue with cockroaches bedbugs fleas potato beetles and other crop pests the discovery could lead to benefits for the pest-control industry and farming.
Differences in the relative abundance of certain bacterial species in the rootworm gut help the adult rootworm beetles feed on soybean leaves
This boost in digestive finesse allows rotation-resistant beetles to survive long enough to lay their eggs in soybean fields.
In a 2012 study Seufferheld Spencer and their colleagues reported that rotation-resistant rootworm beetles were better able than their nonresistant counterparts to tolerate the defensive chemicals produced in soybeans leaves.
This allowed the beetles to feed more and survive longer on soybean plants. The researchers found that levels of key digestive enzymes differed significantly between the rotation-resistant and nonresistant rootworms
but differences in the expression of the genes encoding these enzymes did not fully explain the rotation-resistant beetles'advantage.
To test this hypothesis graduate student Chia-Ching Chu analyzed the population of microbes living in the guts of rootworm beetles collected from seven sites across the Midwest.
The beetles'gut microbial structure corresponded to the insects'level of activity (rotation-resistant rootworms are usually more active)
To determine whether the microbes were in fact giving the rotation-resistant beetles an advantage the researchers dosed the beetles with antibiotics.
Low-level exposure to antibiotics had no effect on any of the beetles but at higher doses the rotation-resistant beetles'survival time on soybean leaves fell to that of the nonresistant beetles.
Antibiotics also lowered the activity of digestive enzymes in the rotation-resistant beetles'guts to that of their nonresistant counterparts.
The message of the research Seufferheld said is that the gut microbes are not just passive residents of the rootworm gut.
in addition to ants including certain species of termites and beetles which also act as gardeners in fungal communities.
New plant protection strategiesa similar behavioral pattern is known from potato beetles (Leptinotarsa decemlineata. An artificial application of (Z)- 3-or (E)- 2-hexenol (E)- 2-hexanal or 1-hexanol to potato plants lead to a disoriented behavior observed in egg-laying potato beetles.
On the basis of these results plant protection strategies seem possible which utilize artificial odor application
A Smudge on Paleolithic Art Ochroconis anomala Country: Francefungus: In 2001 black stains began to appear on the walls of Lascaux Cave in France.
Luminescence among terrestrial animals is rather rare and best known among several groups of beetles--fireflies
and certain click beetles in particular--as well as cave-inhabiting fungus gnats. Since the first discovery of a luminescent cockroach in 1999 more than a dozen species have (pardon the pun) come to light.
because the size and placement of its lamps suggest that it is using light to mimic toxic luminescent click beetles.
beneficial insects such as ladybirds and bees are exposed to lots of different chemicals and we have a really poor understanding of
#Researchers help unlock pine beetles Pandoras boxtwenty researchers--more than half of them Simon Fraser University graduates
A paper detailing their newly created sequencing of the mountain pine beetle's (MPB) genome will be gold in the hands of scientists trying to stem the beetle's invasion into eastern forests.
just as the mountain pine beetle has been doing to B c.'s lodgepole pines says Christopher Keeling the paper's lead author.
It's the beetle's genome that will help us figure out exactly how it does its damage
As the beetles'range expands and as they head into jack pine forests where the defensive compounds may be different this variation could allow them to be more successful in new environments explains Keeling.
The MPB genome allows us to examine the population differences for beetles at various parts of an outbreak.
The genome sequencing of the first North american pest bark beetle species in the Genus dendroctonus also uncovers a bacterial gene that has jumped into the MPB genome.
and/or microorganisms that grow in the beetle's tunnels beneath the bark of a tree explains Keeling.
Over 20 years Robertson recorded visits from 1429 pollinators (including flies beetles and butterflies as well as bees) to 456 plant species. He identified
and beetles usually live in natural or semi-natural habitats such as the edges of forests hedgerows or grasslands.
The beetles don't carry disease but their larvae feed on the ash trees'sap effectively killing the trees by depriving trees of their nourishment.
Baker and a postdoctoral fellow in his lab Michael J. Domingue were using dead female EABS for bait to trap the male beetles.
The two researchers working with a graduate student in Lakhtakia's lab Drew P. Pulsifer created a mold of the top of the female beetle's body.
The decoy beetle is made by a process of layering polymers with different refractive indexes to create the desired iridescence
and create a color similar to the beetle's own iridescent green. The researchers'findings are scheduled to be published in the April issue of the Journal of Bionic Engineering.
They also ran a pilot test in Hungary with a related beetle pest that bores into oak trees.
The insect's recent invasion to the island of Guam has endangered the island's endemic cycad species. Local biologists introduced a voracious beetle predator to the island to eat the scale insects
We began looking into the reasons that the beetle was failing to control the pest
Unfortunately the much larger beetle predator could not make the same journey through the trichomes to feed on the scale insects that were feeding on the plant beneath the trichomes.
#New control strategies for bipolar bark beetlespopulation explosions of pine beetles which have been decimating North american forests in recent decades may be prevented by boosting competitor
Bark beetles are the most destructive forest pests worldwide. Management and climate change have resulted in younger denser forests that are even more susceptible to attack.
Though intensively studied for decades until now an understanding of bark beetle population dynamics--extreme ups and downs--has remained elusive.
The new research by Dartmouth scientists and their forester colleagues could provide the means to limit this seemingly bipolar dynamic keeping the bark beetles at the lower stable population level.
The studies identify the presence of bark beetle competitors and predators (specifically two other beetles) as the predominant limiting factor that can keep the bark beetles at a low stable equilibrium.
The authors suggest that the presence of these competitors and predators could be encouraged as a control strategy.
The pine beetles produce pheromones chemical signals that attract enough competitors and predators to prevent outbreaks says Sharon Martinson a member of the research team and first author on the new paper.
This is the case of small beetles the weevils (Curculio sp. that lay their eggs inside the unripe acorns
and through the metamorphosis becomes a new adult beetle. Voles are the main consumers of acorns
and an apparent harmful beetle can be attractive to voles that at the same time releases acorns from this enemy
In an analysis of 18 years of data from 1296 counties in 15 states researchers found that Americans living in areas infested by the emerald ash borer a beetle that kills ash trees suffered from an additional
The beetles attacked lodge pole pines the same species affected in outbreaks throughout British columbia and Colorado.
We found that the beetles do not disturb watersheds in the same way as logging
beetle-killed areas another indication of how understory vegetation compensates for environmental conditions in beetle kill areas.
The researchers measured stream nitrate concentrations at more than 100 sites in western Colorado containing lodgepole pines with a range of beetle-induced tree damage.
#Research revisiting the safety of GM weevil-resistant peas in mice contradicts previous risk assessment findingsresearchers at the Medical University of Vienna have conducted feeding trials with mice to investigate the allergenicity of genetically modified (GM) weevil-resistant peas.
which can be devastated by pea weevil (Bruchus pisorum) infestation. Unlike peas beans are attacked not by pea weevils as they contain a protein called Î-amylase inhibitor (Î AI) that causes the weevils feeding on beans to starve before they cause any damage.
The Meduni Vienna-team investigated immune responses in mice fed several varieties of beans non-transgenic peas
#Buy local firewood to prevent spread of invasive beetle, forest service saysenjoying the cooler temperatures with a warm toasty fire?
The Kansas Forest Service is asking residents to help save trees by buying their firewood locally all to prevent the further spread of an invasive beetle killing millions of ash trees.
The emerald ash borer is a small green metallic beetle that was detected first in the United states in 2002 in Detroit said Ryan Armbrust a forest health specialist with the Kansas Forest Service.
The invasive beetle is attacking ash trees in the Kansas city area specifically in Wyandotte Johnson and Leavenworth counties.
The beetle invades a tree by landing on the bark and laying an egg. That larva will hatch
Unfortunately once these symptoms appear the beetle has already been in the tree for a few years
Armbrust says they believe the beetle first arrived in the United states through packing material. Now it is spreading through the transportation of firewood and lumber.
The adult beetles are poor flyers and only travel about a mile on an annual basis Armbrust said.
But a new Yale-led study shows the critical importance of earthworms beetles and other tiny creatures to the structure of grasslands and the valuable ecosystem services they provide.
#Mountain pine beetles get bad rap for wildfires, study saysmountain pine beetles get a bad rap and understandably so.
The grain-of-rice-sized insects are responsible for killing pine trees over tens of millions of acres in the Western U s. and Canada over the last decade.
Instead weather and topography play a greater role in the ecological severity of fires than these bark-boring beetles.
whether fires that burn in areas impacted by mountain pine beetles are more ecologically severe than in those not attacked by the native bug.
The phenomenon of more beetles has meant more dead trees and some have grown concerned about how beetle attacks
The burrows the beetles carve under the bark of pines called galleries choke off water and nutrient circulation in the trees.
Fortunately for the team among the burned areas studied were pine stands that had not been attacked by beetles.
Others suffered a range of mortality from the beetles; in some stands beetles killed nearly 90 percent of the trees prior to wildfire.
The fires that raged also ran the spectrum of severity allowing the researchers to compare a number of variables.
and stripped sections of bark from over 10000 trees to determine what killed them beetles
or Fire beetle galleries can remain visible under the bark even after fire. As they sifted through the blackened trees
and windy--did areas with more beetle-killed trees show signs of more ecologically severe fires such as more deeply burned trunks
By counting the number of post-fire tree seedlings in their plots the researchers found very little beetle-related impact.
and tossed by the wind a field of soybean plants presents a challenge for an Asian lady beetle on the hunt for aphids.
That's good news for hungry lady beetles according to research Barton published in the September issue of the journal Ecology.
Lady beetles eat a major soybean pest the soybean aphid. Barton grew plots of soybeans in alfalfa fields protecting some with wind blocks
He found two-thirds more lady beetles in the plots hidden from the wind and twice as many soybean aphids on the plants growing in the open.
But when you add the predators with the wind block the beetles eat something like twice as many aphids.
and bend them--a stilled soybean plant represented a smorgasbord for the lady beetle. How do you do your duty as a predator if you're entire world is moving around?
#Femme fatale emerald ash borer decoy lures, kills malesan international team of researchers has designed decoys that mimic female emerald ash borer beetles
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.
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.
Beetles appear to be able to recognize this feature of the decoys and are attracted strongly to it.
thus enabling us to figure out how these destructive beetles find each other to mate and how we can exploit this behavior
#Speckled beetle key to saving crops in Ethiopia, researchers sayan invasive weed poses a serious and frightening threat to farming families in Ethiopia
a tiny speckled beetle. The weed called parthenium is so destructive that farmers in the east African nation have given despairingly it the nickname faramsissa in Amharic
Extensive research has shown us that the beetle eats and breeds only on parthenium leaves said Muni Muniappan director of the Integrated Pest Management Innovation Lab a program funded by the U s. Agency for International Development.
The Innovation Lab built a quarantine facility in 2007 to ensure that the pea-sized beetle had eyes for parthenium alone.
and extension agents to construct a breeding facility and increase the number of beetles. Finally on July 16 the Innovation Lab team joined a group of about 30 scientists
The group moved from parthenium patch to parthenium patch dumping beetles from containers. Ethiopian researchers will monitor the sites
As a second step scientists are poised to release a stem-boring weevil that will join Zygogramma.
The dominant groups were mites millipedes beetles and an assortment of ants said Carrel. What was surprising was that the salamanders collected on trees did not have anything one would associate with a plant-feeding insect like aphids.
A new international study published this week in Nature Climate Change shows that damage from wind bark beetles
while bark beetle damage increased most strongly in The alps. Wind damage would be seen to rise most notably in Central and Western europe.
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