These diminutive insect-eating creatures which breed in Pennsylvania and winter in Central and South america contribute greatly to the health of forests.
The insects allegedly nibble away at the grassroots thus causing the dieback of vegetation. Other researchers consider hydrocarbons emanating from the depths of the earth being responsible for this phenomenon.
There is up to now not one single piece of evidence demonstrating that social insects are capable of creating homogenously distributed structures on such a large scale.
what happens on a molecular basis in insects that evolved resistance to genetically engineered cotton plants.
which was designed to make an insect-killing bacterial protein called Bt toxin. The results could have major impacts for managing pest resistance to Bt crops.
By understanding how insects adapt to Bt crops we can devise better strategies to delay the evolution of resistance
Planting refuges near Bt crops allows susceptible insects to survive and reproduce and thus reduces the chances that two resistant insects will mate with each other
and produce resistant offspring. Similarly mass release of sterile moths also makes it less likely for two resistant individuals to encounter each other and mate.
The emergence of resistant pink bollworm in India provided the researchers an opportunity to test the hypothesis that insects in the field would evolve resistance to Bt toxin by the same genetic mechanism found previously in the lab. In the lab strains the scientists had identified mutations in a gene
which leaves the insect unscathed by the Bt toxin. We wanted to see if field-resistant pink bollworm from India harbored these same changes in the cadherin gene Fabrick said.
Sequencing the DNA of resistant pink bollworm collected from the field in India the team found that the insects produce remarkably diverse disrupted variants of cadherin.
Mario Soberã n a Bt expert at the Universidad Nacional Autã noma de MÃ xico in Cuernavaca who was not an author of the study commented This is a neat example of the diverse mechanisms insect
and managing these vital pollinators. The data that Bunker and Devan anticipate collecting over the next few years could confirm a disturbing possibility--that the critical relationship between temperature-sensitive bees
Yet they may find that pollinators such as the bees at Morristown can adapt in ways that do not seriously undermine their role in pollination and by implication in agricultural production.
#International standards significantly reducing insect stowaways in wood packaging materiala new international standard for wood packaging material used in international trade is significantly slowing the inadvertent export of stowaway invasive bark-and wood
-boring insects according to a study by the National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis (NCEAS.
of insect stowaways. The study Effectiveness of the International Phytosanitary Standard ISPM No 15 on Reducing Wood Borer Infestation Rates in Wood Packaging Material Entering the United states was published today in the journal PLOS ONE.
Several hundred nonnative forest insect species have become established in the U s . and recent arrivals such as the Asian longhorned beetle and the emerald ash borer have killed millions of trees and altered urban landscapes in the Northeast and Midwest.
Destructive invasive insects have changed forest landscapes in the United states and throughout the world said Michael T. Rains Director of the Northern Research Station
Florida Museum assistant curator of Lepidoptera Akito Kawahara said new species of insects sometimes lead to powerful discoveries that affect other fields including agriculture and medicine.
The small insects do actually fly over distances of 50 kilometres. Tamara Pokorny has a theory regarding how they get the energy necessary for those long distances without being forced to stop
#Biological control for brazilian peppertree closer than evera South american insect could help control the invasive Brazilian peppertree in places where it supplants critical habitat for many organisms according to University of Florida and U s. Department of agriculture scientists.
For the experiments UF and USDA researchers brought two types of thrips--tiny insects that often feed on plants--from Brazil to Florida laboratories.
Scientists predict the insect will thrive in Florida where temperatures sometimes dip below freezing which is only slightly colder than the insect is used to. â#oethe idea of biological control is to reunite these highly specialized natural enemies with their host plant in this case Brazilian peppertree to help reduce plant densities in the invaded areaâ#said Veronica Manrique a UF
senior biological scientist and lead author of the study. â#oewe are also working with two other natural enemies a psyllid
and Texas will want to introduce the insect. Eventually there may also be interest in other areas of the world such as Australia. â#Starting in the 1800s two types of Brazilian peppertree were brought to Florida Overholt said.
because it is an economically important and well understood crop that relies on insect pollination.
The role of root infection by insect-carried bacterial pathogens has been underestimated greatly said Evan Johnson a research assistant scientist with UF's Institute of food and agricultural sciences.
Citrus greening first enters the tree via a tiny insect the Asian citrus psyllid which sucks on leaf sap
since bees are prime pollinators of roughly one-third of all crops worldwide. Experts have considered a number of possible causes including pathogen infestation beekeeping practices and pesticide exposure.
http://vimeo. com/92354801we knew that insects are attracted generally to light so we were able to exploit that with these traps said John Aigner a doctoral student in the Department of Entomology.
Treatment of the insects in crops is costly because the insecticides required to control it are broad spectrum toxicants that are highly disruptive to integrated pest management programs.
which are designed to kill pest insects. Toxicity of these neurotoxicants does vary a lot among species--in our study the shrimps turned out to be much more sensitive than the pond snail.
which are designed to kill pest insects. Toxicity of these neurotoxicants does vary a lot among species--in our study the shrimps turned out to be much more sensitive than the pond snail.
In addition this was the first study to use tree rings to track the spread of an invasive tree-feeding insect.
and two Canadian provinces and have become the most destructive and costly forest insect to ever invade North america Mccullough said.
Mario Sergio Palma and colleagues explain that dividing tasks among individuals in a group is a key development in social behavior among Hymenoptera insects
which through nutrition and hormones results in long-lived queens that lay all the thousands of eggs in a colony
Simple and elegant mechanism regulates relationships between insects and bacteriasymbiosis is the process that occurs
The findings show how a simple mechanism allows an insect the pea aphid to regulate the manufacturing of essential nutrients supplied by its symbiotic bacteria called Buchnera aphidicola.
In turn the symbiotic bacteria can't produce amino acids that the aphid can make so the partners exchange insect-produced amino acids for symbiont-produced amino acids.
Thus amino acid transporters play a key role in the evolutionary success of these insects. But an important question remains:
Wilson's lab may find the answer by looking at other sap-feeding insects with intracellular bacteria based on an understanding that emerged from another study from her lab. The study titled Dynamic recruitment of amino acid transporters to the insect
That study found that the presence of amino acid transporters is expanded significantly in some sap-feeding insects relative to non sap-feeding insects.
Further these expansions result from large-scale gene duplications that took place independently in different sap-eating insects.
Given the extensive gene duplication of the amino acid transporter gene families that took place multiple times independently in sap-feeding insects it makes sense that gene duplication might be important for recruiting amino acid transporters to mediate
amino acid exchange between these insects and their symbionts said Rebecca P. Duncan doctoral student in the Department of biology at UM and first author of the study.
The sap-eating insects with expanded amino acid transporters come from a common ancestor. However given that the genes expanded independently in each insect sap-feeding insects likely evolved their relationships with their symbionts separately as opposed to in their common ancestor.
Hence Wilson's lab can test if their model is broadly applicable by examining the mechanism of symbiotic regulation in the other sap-feeding insects used in this study.
The findings of these studies show that symbiotic relationships have the power to shape animal evolution at the genetic level.
It might kill a few other insects in the nest. This is the same stuff in head-lice shampoo you put on your kid.
High tunnels can provide protection against some insects early freezes hail and other weather events.
#Leaf chewing links insect diversity in modern and ancient forestsobservations of insects and their feeding marks on leaves in modern forests confirm indications from fossil leaf deposits that the diversity of chewing damage relates directly to diversity of the insect
The direct link between richness of leaf-chewing insects and their feeding damage across host plants in two tropical forests validates the underlying assumptions of many paleobiological studies that rely on damage-type richness as a means to infer changes in relative
but rarely include all the insects that actually made the marks. MÃ nica R. Carvalho graduate student Cornell University and Peter Wilf professor of geosciences Penn State and colleagues looked at leaf predation in two tropical forests in Panama to test
for a relationship between the richness of leaf-chewing insects and the leaf damage that the same insects induce.
Using Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute canopy-access cranes and working in the dark at almost 200 feet high in the treetops at new moon during two summers the researchers collected a total of 276 adult
and immature leaf-chewing insects of 156 species . While the largest category of insect was beetles leaf chewers among grasshoppers stick insects
and caterpillars as well as a few ants were collected also. The team also collected fresh leaves of the insects'host plants
and placed the insects in feeding experiment bags with these leaves. They allowed adult insects to feed for two to three days and immature stages to feed until full maturity when possible.
The researchers then classified the damage to the leaves into categories in the same way they catalog fossil leaf-chewing damage.
This is the first attempt to compare leaf-chewing damage inflicted by many kinds of living insects on many kinds of plants throughout a large forest area both to the culprit insects
and to the leaf damage we see in the fossil record said Carvalho. We mounted 276 of the insects with their damaged leaves
and deposited them in the STRI Insect Collection. This collection is known the only vouchered collection of diverse identified insects
and their feeding damage on leaves of identified plant hosts. The number of collected insect species correlated strongly with the number of damage types recorded in canopy leaves of 24 tree
and liana species observed in the feeding experiments. This suggests that the number of types of damage seen in the fossil record is also related to the actual diversity of damage-making insects.
The researchers also compared the modern leaf data to fossil data from Colombia Argentina the Great plains and the Rocky mountains.
They found that the distribution of chewing marks was the same across both modern and ancient settings showing a striking consistency in how insects have divided up their leaf resources since at least the end of the age of dinosaurs.
In the fossil record we frequently find a decrease in damage-type richness during cooling events
Usually insect body-fossils from these critical time intervals are absent or very rare so we rely on the insect-damaged leaves to tell the story.
These fossil studies have been considered tremendously important for understanding how ecosystems have responded and will respond to climate change and disturbance.
We now have direct observational evidence that the fossil data represent changes in actual insect richness
This work also unlocks the potential to use insect damage as a new way to assess living insect richness as in the fossil record in the context of climate change said Carvalho.
More kinds of chewing marks means more kinds of insects. Other researchers on this project were HÃ ctor Barrios Programa de Maestrã a en Entomologã a Universidad de Panamã¡;
and the insects fluttered about the corners of its eyes. De la Rosa reported the encounter in a peer-reviewed letter in the May 2014 issue of the Ecological Society of America's journal Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment.
Why are these insects tapping into this resource? Though bountiful in the ocean salt is often a rare and valuable resource on land especially for vegetarians.
Scientists at La Selva have discovered hundreds of species of aquatic insects that are unnamed still and undescribed.
when exposed to perilous situations according to new research from Queen Mary University of London. The study published in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B shows that past experience of predation causes bumblebees to join other bees already safely feeding on flowers.
This simulates an attack by a crab spider a predator that lurks on flowers to catch pollinators
These results show a remarkable flexibility in pollinators'strategic foraging decisions. Bees normally spread themselves out among flowers to minimise competition
but when danger lurks they dine together to seek safety in numbers commented co-author Professor Lars Chittka from Queen Mary's School of Biological and Chemical sciences.
The above story is provided based on materials by Queen Mary University of London. Note: Materials may be edited for content and length.
#Insects represent link for antibiotic resistance traitsthose pesky house flies buzzing around your home or invading your springtime picnic could be doing more harm to human health than you realize.
According to a recent study by Kansas State university published in the Applied and Environmental Microbiology journal insects carry antibiotic-resistant bacteria from one point to another including from food animal farms and wastewater treatment
There are a number of insects that are associated commonly with animals such as house flies and cockroaches said Ludek Zurek K-State professor of microbial ecology
The researchers then genetically analyzed the bacteria in the digestive tract of the insects and compared them to the bacteria present in the animal feces and wastewater.
We found these insects carry the same bacteria found in the animal manure Zurek said.
Then we started sampling insects found in surrounding urban areas including fast food restaurants and again we found house flies with multi-drug resistant bacteria.
The study led the researchers to conclude that insects primarily house flies can pick up antibiotic-resistant bacteria
In addition to the insects Zurek and his research team have showed also that wild birds such as ravens
and bean the team found the insects became temporarily disorientated. Like other insect pests whitefly feed by pushing their long mouthpiece--or stylets--into the leaf until it reaches the plant's main source of nutrients travelling through the phloem.
Weaving their way between the plant cells to reach the sap is technically challenging and the team found the whiteflies failed to feed
'and the result is that the insect becomes disorientated and is feed unable to. Because the effect is temporary--we saw it last no more than 15 hours--it's unlikely this method alone could be used to control crop pests.
Measuring the time it took from the insect settling on a plant to accessing the plant sap the team showed that hardly any of the whiteflies exposed to a range of smells started feeding from the phloem within 15 hours from the time of exposure.
so if we can confuse the insects long enough to give the plants time to defend themselves this may go someway to reducing crop losses.
The U s. North has the dubious distinction of having the greatest number of invasive insects
A low propensity or low capacity for forest management reduces options for addressing perceived problems such as low forest diversity invasive species and other insects or disease problems.
and the United states currently are not necessary in East Africa said Elliud Muli senior lecturer in the Department of Biological sciences South Eastern Kenya University and researcher at the International Centre of Insect Physiology and Ecology
and Europe--parasites pathogens and pesticides--do not seem to be affecting Kenyan bees at least not yet said Christina Grozinger professor of entomology and director of the Center for Pollinator Research Penn State.
but the insects are important for plants as well. Honeybees are pollinators of untold numbers of plants in every ecosystem on the African continent Patch said.
They pollinate many food crops as well as those important for economic development and their products like honey
We are seeing more and more evidence of climate events weakening trees making them more likely to succumb to insects pathogens
and support economically valuable pollinators such as bees and bats and provide ecosystem services such as filtering water
Climate change is expected also to intensify several stresses that forests already face such as damaging insect pests and diseases drought and wildfire.
With 420 species of wild bees in Michigan alone it makes sense to attract as many free pollinators as possible.
Improving peanut varieties to be more drought-insect -and disease-resistant can help farmers in developed nations produce more peanuts with fewer pesticides
and limits photosynthesis. Particular types of bacteria consume methane creating food for grazing insects and consequently the rest of the food web including trout.
The above story is provided based on materials by Queen Mary University of London. Note: Materials may be edited for content and length.
The scientists looked at the genes'response to five abiotic stresses--drought heavy metal contamination salt cold and nutrient deprivation--and five biotic stresses--bacteria fungus insect predation weed
and use it for studies of insects or even small fish. One day he hopes to have a commercial instrument that can be used by biological researchers around the world.
The scientists identified 43 species of insects among the 98 specimens collected. The study revealed that the primary prey of the spider especially in early spring are five species of scarab beetles endemic to the Florida scrub habitat.
They are one of the most important pollinators visiting many types of plants including some 700 species of orchids that are pollinated exclusively by these bees.
In particular the presence of large densities and varieties of flowering plants supports a number of pollinating insects
By growing a variety of plants from around the world gardeners ensure that a range of food sources is available for many different pollinators.
But until now we have had very little idea about how the origins of garden plants actually affect their use by our native pollinators.
and cities the long-term survival of some of our common pollinators--like the'garden bumblebee'--could be in jeopardy.
In addition to growing truly native plants like foxgloves where possible gardeners can help native pollinators by setting aside a small area to allow native brambles vetches dead nettles
but social insects such as bees can also transmit information through touch vibration and smell. The researchers said the communication method used by the bees is still a mystery.
Insect pests in the makingof thousands of known species of Drosophila fruit flies just one is known as a crop pest depositing eggs inside ripening fruit
Svenson collected the insects from eight countries in Central and South america as well as gathered hundreds of specimens from 25 international museums in North america South america and Europe.
This is an amazing behavior for an insect because it shows that they are not only relying on camouflage like most insects
but are constantly monitoring their environment and taking action to run and hide said Svenson.
When threatened by bees elephants shake their heads in an effort to knock the insects away as well as running
#Success of new bug-fighting approach may vary from field to fielda new technique to fight crop insect pests may affect different insect populations differently researchers report.
They analyzed RNA interference (RNAI) a method that uses genetic material to silence specific genes--in this case genes known to give insect pests an advantage.
-Ching Chu entomology research associate Weilin Sun Illinois Natural history Survey insect behaviorist Joseph Spencer and U. of I. entomology professor Barry Pittendrigh.
Rather than studying a laboratory population of insects in the new analysis the team tested RNAI on rootworm beetles collected from fields in three locations in the Midwest--two in Illinois with established rotation-resistant populations
After generations in the laboratory insects gradually lose their natural diversity Seufferheld said. This makes it easier to control them
and may not accurately reflect actual insect responses in the field he said. Seufferheld now works for Monsanto and is based in Buenos aires where he is in charge of insect resistance management.
The team targeted two genes that are regulated differently in rotation-resistant and non-resistant rootworms. The first Dvrs5 codes for an enzyme that helps the rootworms digest plant proteins.
The second att 1 aids in the insects'immune response. These genes have been found to play a role in rootworm resistance to crop rotation.
But the study does offer important insights into the complexity of insect biology Seufferheld said.
and the insects that feed on those crops this knowledge will help us develop better pest-management strategies that are more in tune with nature.
This is important evidence that insect populations vary in their response to RNAI and might be influenced by other selective events Pittendrigh said.
Although insect-eating bats have been shown to avoid foraging in light-polluted areas this is the first study to show that fruit-eating bats also avoid lit areas.
#Predators delay pest resistance to Bt cropscrops genetically modified with the bacterium Bt (Bacillus thuringiensis) produce proteins that kill pest insects.
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 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
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:
which simulates the life of a colony including the queen's egg laying brood care by nurse bees
Professor Osborne's research group studies the behaviour and ecology of bees and other pollinators.
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.
and managing insect resistance to corn and cotton plants genetically engineered to produce proteins from the bacterium Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt).
but are not toxic to people wildlife or even most insects. Organic growers have used Bt toxins in sprays for decades
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.
Flowers attract pollinators fruits attract seed-dispersing animals plants express stress responses and organisms communicate with each other in many ways via color.
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.
and insect fossils suggesting the Bering land bridge wasn't just barren grassy tundra steppe
and by then the insect has transmitted already the bacterium into the plant especially if that psyllid flew into the field.
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.
but that does not take into account foliar symptoms potential insect damage and other yield-limiting factors he said.
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
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 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.
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.
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