Praying Mantis vs. Hummingbird (via BoingBoing)
New Repellent Foils Cling-On Bugs
A non-toxic insect repellent designed to make insects slip on almost any surface has been unveiled by scientists at Cambridge University. The substance creates a coating that causes the creatures to behave like “someone with wet feet in the shower”, a university spokesman said. It is hoped the coating could restrict the movement of pests such as termites, cockroaches, ants and locusts…. (continues @ BBC News)
Bug Splatter On Your Car’s Windshield Is A Treasure Trove Of Genomic Biodiversity (via ScienceDaily)
Scientists are apparently using genetic analysis to estimate regional insect diversity from bug splatter
Rare Insect On Rocky Pryramid (via BoingBoing, AtlasObscura)
The remnants of a once massive volcano, Ball’s Pyramid juts 1,843 feet out of the Pacific ocean. Discovered in 1788, the barren, rocky spire was thought to be devoid of life until 2001 when a group of scientists discovered what may be the world’s rarest insect.
The Lord Howe Island stick insect (Dryococelus australis) had not been seen alive in over 70 years. Known as “land lobsters” or “walking sausages,” the six inch long insects had once been common on the neighboring Lord Howe Island, but were assumed to have been eaten into extinction by black rats introduced when a supply ship ran aground in 1918.
Yet in 2001 the scientists found a colony of the huge Lord Howe Island stick insects living under a single bush, a hundred feet up the otherwise entirely infertile rock. Somehow a few of the wingless insects escaped and managed—by means still unknown—to traverse 23 kilometers of open ocean, land on Ball’s Pyramid, and survive there. Just 27 of the insects have been found on the rocky spire. They are currently being bred in captivity.
Maple Seeds and Animals Exploit the Same Trick To Fly (via ScienceDaily)
The twirling seeds of maple trees spin like miniature helicopters as they fall to the ground. Because the seeds descend slowly as they swirl, they can be carried aloft by the wind and dispersed over great distances. Just how the seeds manage to fall so slowly, however, has mystified scientists.
In research published in the journal Science, researchers from Wageningen University in the Netherlands and the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) describe the aerodynamic secret of the enchanting swirling seeds.
The research, led by David Lentink, an assistant professor at Wageningen, and Michael H. Dickinson, the Zarem Professor of Bioengineering at Caltech, revealed that, by swirling, maple seeds generate a tornado-like vortex that sits atop the front leading edge of the seed as they spin slowly to the ground. This leading-edge vortex lowers the air pressure over the upper surface of the maple seed, effectively sucking the wing upward to oppose gravity, giving it a boost. The vortex doubles the lift generated by the seeds compared to nonswirling seeds.
This use of a leading-edge vortex to increase lift is remarkably similar to the trick employed by insects, bats, and hummingbirds when they sweep their wings back and forth to hover. The finding means that plants and animals have converged evolutionarily on an identical aerodynamic solution for improving their flight performance.
How House-hunting Ants Choose The Best Home
Dr Elva Robinson and colleagues in the University’s School of Biological Sciences fitted rock ants with tiny radio-frequency identification tags, each measuring 1 / 2,000 (one two-thousandth) the size of a postage stamp, then observed as they chose between a poor nest nearby and a good nest further away.
The ant colonies showed sophisticated nest-site choice, selecting the superior site even though it was nine times further away than the alternative. The best nest was chosen, despite the fact that very few individual ants made direct comparisons between the nest-sites.
When a colony of rock ants needs to emigrate to a new nest, scouting ants first discover new nests and assess them then the scouts recruit nest-mates to the new nest using tandem-running, where an informed ant leads a second ant to her destination. When the number of ants in the new nest reaches a quorum, scouts begin rapid transport of the rest of the colony by carrying nest-mates and brood…. (continues @ ScienceDaily)
Cure For Honey Bee Colony Collapse?
A little while back I posted a Chicago Public Radio special podcast on the recent decline honeybee popultions. Now, it seems like the cause and its cure have been discovered (from ScienceDaily)….
For the first time, scientists have isolated the parasite Nosema ceranae (Microsporidia) from professional apiaries suffering from honey bee colony depopulation syndrome. They then went on to treat the infection with complete success.
In a study published in the new journal from the Society for Applied Microbiology: Environmental Microbiology Reports, scientists from Spain analysed two apiaries and found evidence of honey bee colony depopulation syndrome (also known as colony collapse disorder in the USA). They found no evidence of any other cause of the disease (such as the Varroa destructor, IAPV or pesticides), other than infection with Nosema ceranae. The researchers then treated the infected surviving under-populated colonies with the antibiotic drug, flumagillin and demonstrated complete recovery of all infected colonies.
Once again, loss of honeybees could have a major impact on both ecology and economies….
The loss of honey bees could have an enormous horticultural and economic impact worldwide. Honeybees are important pollinators of crops, fruit and wild flowers and are indispensable for a sustainable and profitable agriculture as well as for the maintenance of the non-agricultural ecosystem. Honeybees are attacked by numerous pathogens including viruses, bacteria, fungi and parasites.
Ants, Ants, Ants
Three interesting articles on ant behavior I read today….
Homebody Queen Ants Help Preserve Family Ties in Large Populations
Ant and bee colonies have long fascinated biologists because of their hierarchical social structure and the apparently altruistic behaviour of female workers in rearing the queen’s young rather than reproducing themselves. In colonies headed by a single queen, this makes evolutionary sense in that the workers are as closely related to the princesses and princes they nurture as they would be to their own children.
Thus the genes underlying this behaviour would be successfully transmitted through the generations due to “kin selection”.
But to what extent, if any, can kinship ties account for the evolutionary maintenance of altruistic behaviour in large unicolonial ant populations in which nests contain hundreds of queens?….
Food Security For Leaf-Cutting Ants: Workers and their Fungus Garden Regect Invadors
New diseases directly affect human survival and food security, especially as population density climbs. Leaf-cutting ants, one of a few groups of social insects to cultivate crops, have harvested plant material to fertilize their underground fungal gardens for ~50 million years. New results from the Smithsonian show that both the ants and their fungal crop actively combat fungi coming into the nest inside leaves, thus ensuring the health of their mutualism….
Ants Can Learn To Forage On One-Way Trails
Ant trails fascinate children and scientists alike. With so many ants traveling in both directions, meeting and contacting one another, carrying their loads and giving the impression that they have a sense of urgency and duty, they pose the following question: how do they organize themselves? A new study may have some answers….
In the new study, the researchers show that ants can work around a difficult obstacle that prevents them from returning home via the same route they used to reach a food supply. Unable to return to the nest on their two-way trail (which has most likely been in use for millions of years) they set up a new one-way system, taking two separate unidirectional roads between nest and food….
