tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-68615307361205690652024-02-08T19:28:52.172+00:00Random EntomologyOccasional ramblings about random topics in entomologyThe Random Entomologisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07000808027668312820noreply@blogger.comBlogger6125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6861530736120569065.post-64559773713635912642011-11-26T13:27:00.001+00:002011-12-03T13:49:09.721+00:00Insects in medicineI woke up this morning with a strange thought in my head - why aren't insects used more often in medicine? Off the top of my head I could only think of one example (for all of you shouting '<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hirudo_medicinalis" target="_blank">leeches</a>!' they are not insects but worms).<br />
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No, the example I was thinking of was the use of blow worm maggots to <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maggot_therapy" target="_blank">clean up certain wounds</a> as they will eat the dead tissue reducing the likelihood of infection. An example can be seen <a href="http://www.youtube.com/user/poststandardvideo#p/search/0/bAY7OKp6D7w" target="_blank">here</a> though this is absolutely not for the squeamish!<br />
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The real question though was not about the mechanical application of insects but about the use of chemicals derived from insects as medicines. I have often heard about medicines derived from plant chemicals (the obvious example is <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_aspirin" target="_blank">Aspirin</a> (from Willow if you were wondering)) but not any from insects.<br />
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A quick internet search shows that there are some examples, but not much with any really solid evidence behind them. Is there a phytocentric approach to medicinal discovery? You certainly hear of pharmaceutical companies utilising botanists to try and find new drugs and indeed indigenous communities complaining of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commercialization_of_indigenous_knowledge#Biopiracy_and_bioprospecting" target="_blank">biopiracy</a> but never have I come across talk of anyone considering the massive variety of insect fauna as a source of new medicines.<br />
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So, why not? <br />
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It's certainly not because of numbers - there are thought to be around 300 thousand species of plant, but at least 1.3 million species of insect. Perhaps its just that the knowledge of the medicinal effects of plants is better and not close to being exhausted that the harder to find (and more likely to run/fly away) insects are not being considered.<br />
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Perhaps more likely though is that plants <i>can't</i> run away and therefore need another form of defence against being eaten. It is often the secondary metabolites produced by the plant to reduce herbivory that are used as medicines. Insects probably produce fewer additional chemicals as a defence mechanism, leading to fewer possible opportunities for finding insects with medicinal properties.<br />
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Alternatively, maybe it is just too difficult to convince someone who is ill to eat a beetle...The Random Entomologisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07000808027668312820noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6861530736120569065.post-47789954888461848922011-05-26T22:22:00.001+01:002011-12-03T13:48:52.300+00:00Trichogramma in flightParasitic wasps of the genus Trichogramma lay their eggs inside the eggs of other insects (see <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bYTh7rmcmc0" target="_blank">here </a>for a vid). As such, they are very small, typically less than 1mm in length and are known to hitch hike on their host insects to get around (this is more complicated than it sounds - see this excellent '<a href="http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/notrocketscience/tag/trichogramma/" target="_blank">Not Exactly Rocket Science</a>' post for more detail).<br />
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However the reason behind this post is not to discuss the fascinating habits of these tiny insects but to point out a <a href="http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/05/110525105832.htm" target="_blank">news item</a> on the Flight Artists from Wageningen University, who have used a high-speed camera (apparently 22,000 frames per second) to capture Trichogramma in flight. <br />
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This is well worth a quick look, not least because it shows that they can beat their wings at 350 strokes per second but they also appear prone to landing on their faces! <br />
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Watch the <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kZyIN23Cy4Y">video here.</a>The Random Entomologisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07000808027668312820noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6861530736120569065.post-39681945114518845992011-03-12T12:00:00.002+00:002011-03-12T13:05:48.814+00:00Don't (just) blame the aphids!<div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">I spend a certain amount of time working with and thinking about aphids (AKA greenfly, blackfly, plant lice…) and have to admit to a certain amount of affection for them. I doubt that many farmers and gardeners feel the same way as they are significant pests of most crops and many garden plants. One of their most serious effects is through the transmission of <a href="http://www.dpvweb.net/intro/index.php">plant viruses</a> as these can cause massive economic damage to crops (eg <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barley_yellow_dwarf" target="_blank">BYDV</a>, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Potato_virus_Y">PVY</a>). Note I am not getting into the different virus transmission types (persistent, semi-persistent and non-persistent), but you can read about the differences <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plant_virus#Insects">here</a>. The discussion below is about a non-persistent virus. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">Although it is the virus that causes the damage it is generally the aphid that is seen as the villain in this scenario and it is always the aphid that is the target of any control options. Often all aphids are seen as a problem, even if only a small number of species (there are over 500 in the UK alone) are actually capable of transmitting a particular virus. At the most basic level, the aphid picks up the virus by feeding on or tasting an infected plant, then moves to another plant and transmits the virus by feeding/tasting again. I think it is often assumed that the virus is passive in this process and that the aphid [maliciously?] skips around spreading as much virus as possible.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">However, the relationship between the virus, the plant and the vector is always a complex one that has been shaped over time by natural selection. A number of investigations have shown that, in some plant-virus-vector relationships at least, it is the virus that manipulates the situation to maximise it’s chances of being spread between plants. A relatively recent example is that of the <i>Cucumber mosaic virus</i> and two aphid species <i>Myzus persicae</i> and <i>Aphis gossypii</i> (Mauck et al, 2010). They have shown that the aphid is attracted to infected plants to pick up the virus and then repelled from those plants leading to an increased likelihood of transmission to a healthy plant.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">So, how does this work?</span></div><ol start="1" style="margin-top: 0cm;" type="1"><li class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">The virus in an infected plant</span></li>
<ol start="1" style="margin-top: 0cm;" type="a"><li class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">Affects the nutritional balance of the plant so it is not a good host for the aphids</span></li>
<li class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">Affects the plant chemistry so that the volatiles escaping from the plant suggest that it is an extremely good host for the aphids</span></li>
</ol><li class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">The aphid arrives in the field</span></li>
<ol start="1" style="margin-top: 0cm;" type="a"><li class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">Uses plant volatiles to find suitable hosts leading to a good chance that they will land on an infected plant as the plant is giving the signal of ‘very good host’</span></li>
<li class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">Once they have landed and tasted the plant (picking up the virus) the actual nutritional balance of the plant suggests it is not a good host and there is a good chance that the aphid will fly of in search of another, more nutritious plant.</span></li>
<li class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">Eventually they will come across a good host, which is likely to be an uninfected plant and transmit the virus to a new host.</span></li>
</ol></ol><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">So the manipulation of the plants biochemistry by the virus essentially tricks the aphid into giving it a ride to healthy plants where it can multiply and continue the process.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">There is (probably) nothing in this for the aphid – it is just a dupe, and ultimately not to blame!</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">This shows that, as with many biological relationships (and indeed many other things), what may appear simple on the surface can actually be a much more complex situation once the detail is investigated.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: 8pt; line-height: 115%;"><b>Reference</b>: Mauck KE, De Moraes CM, Mescher MC. 2010. Deceptive chemical signals attract insect vectors to inferior hosts. <i>Proc Natl Acad Sci</i> <b>107</b> (8): 3600–3605. [<a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2840436/pdf/pnas.200907191.pdf">LINK</a>]</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;"> </span></div>The Random Entomologisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07000808027668312820noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6861530736120569065.post-24574916813164054812011-02-12T08:38:00.004+00:002011-02-16T20:21:43.088+00:00Entomological Haikus<div class="MsoNormal">Though to be fair, these are actually more specific than that as they are all crop protection haikus. These have come about as I spotted the link on <a href="http://membracid.wordpress.com/2011/02/02/4th-annual-hexapod-haiku-challenge/">Bug Girl’s blog</a> about the 4<sup>th</sup> Annual Hexapod Haiku Challenge sponsored by the <a href="http://blog.insectmuseum.org/?p=2473">North Carolina State University Insect Museum</a>. I spent a couple of bus journeys contemplating verse rather than damaging my hearing by listening to my pod at full tilt. These are the results:</div><div class="MsoListParagraph" style="margin-left: 18pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoListParagraph" style="margin-left: 18pt;">An attempt to distil the complex epidemiology of Parsnip Yellow Fleck Virus into 17 syllables </div><div class="MsoListParagraph" style="margin-left: 18pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt 54pt;"><i>Spring umbellifers</i></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt 54pt;"><i>Aphids, virus coincide</i></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt 54pt;"><i>Carrots wilt and die </i></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt 54pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoListParagraph" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt 18pt;">Orange wheat blossom midge is an occasional problem in wheat if the conditions and timing is right and there is only one effective option in the UK</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt 54pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt 54pt;"><i>Still summer evenings</i></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt 54pt;"><i>Blossom midge flits. Right growth stage?</i></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt 54pt;"><i>Chlorpyrifos: death</i></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt 54pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoListParagraph" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt 18pt;">IPM is used in many closed systems to keep pest populations under control (in this case <span id="search" style="visibility: visible;"><i>Trialeurodes vaporariorum</i></span><i> </i>and <i>Encarsia formosa</i>)</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt 54pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt 54pt;"><i>Glasshouse whitefly blooms</i></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt 54pt;"><i>Parasitic wasp controls</i></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt 54pt;"><i>Residue free food</i></div><br />
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">Easier than I thought to fit some things into 17 syllables and for it to still make sense! However, I am sure that aficionados of the genre will point out, perhaps using these as evidence, that it takes far more effort than a 20 minute bus journey to produce good quality Haikus.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">I have submitted these to the competition and await my prize!</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">Comments welcome!</div>The Random Entomologisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07000808027668312820noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6861530736120569065.post-59754102866395186172010-12-28T13:34:00.001+00:002011-12-03T13:46:59.423+00:00Homeopathic Insecticides: a sustainable alternative?<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><span style="font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;"></span></b></div>
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<span style="font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">Had I been asked that question before researching this post, my answer would have been 'almost certainly not'. </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">I recently came across an <a href="http://jamilkhan.wordpress.com/2010/07/24/safe-pesticides-by-pakistani-doctor/">article </a>which reported that two homeopathic insecticides had shown such good results (“<i>... we have successfully developed homeopathic pesticides which are not only 100 per cent effective, but they have also no side effects</i>”, Professor Dr Iftikhar Waris) that the Pakistani government has approved them for use.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">This surprised me on several levels:</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">1.<span style="font: 7pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span><span style="font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">I had previously thought that homeopathy was a medicinal con, relying upon the placebo effect to relieve gullible sick and/or hypochondriac people of their cash</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">2.<span style="font: 7pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span><span style="font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">I had not seen anything in the scientific literature about the ability of these products to control anything</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">3.<span style="font: 7pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span><span style="font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">I could not see what the mechanism of action could possibly be</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">4.<span style="font: 7pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span><span style="font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">In my experience, getting 100% efficacy in the field is all but impossible</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">Homeopathy, a definition [taken from <a href="http://www.skepdic.com/homeo.html">The Skeptic's Dictionary</a>]: "<i>a system of medical treatment based on the use of minute quantities of remedies that in larger doses produce effects similar to those of the disease being treated." </i></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;"><br />
And they really mean minute! For example, a 30C dilution (commonly used in homoeopathic medicine): "<i>1 ml of a solution which has gone through a 30C dilution is mathematically equivalent to 1 ml diluted into a cube of water measuring 1,000,000,000,000,000,000 metres per side, which is about 106 light years."</i> (<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homeopathic_dilutions">Wikipedia</a>).</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">An interesting final paragraph in an entry on Homoeopathy on the <a href="http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/reference/?cat=8">Science Based Medicine</a> blog sums it up nicely: <i>"Therefore, according to everything we currently understand about biology, chemistry, and physics homeopathy is highly implausible and should not work. And, when we carefully study homeopathic remedies they in fact do not work." </i></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">Anyway, back to the article. As it gave no real detail on the products or their efficacy, a literature & internet search was clearly required. This showed that there are a number of proponents of this approach, but very little detail. The one paper I found published in a peer reviewed journal (Cavalca et al, 2010) was the only place where there was any real detail on the efficacy of a homeopathic insecticide. This claims a statistically significant effect at 30C – the highest dilution tested. However, the effect size is so small though that, in my opinion, there is no effect. Note though that the effect claimed is not one of mortality but slight changes to the time taken for the test organisms to pass through the various life stages. </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;"> </span></div>
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<b>Insecticidal Activity</b></div>
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<span style="font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">The synthetic pyrethroids (for example) are extremely efficient insecticides and are effective at very low doses (e.g. 5 grams of active ingredient in at least 200 litres of water per hectare to controls aphids in wheat - equivalent to 0.0025% w/w [from a randomly selected link to a <a href="http://www.interfarm.co.uk/DownloadFile.ashx?FileId=148">product label</a>]) however, it is critical that the active molecule comes into contact with the target pest and is able to enter it's body. Pyrethroids are a class of insecticides <span style="background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% rgb(255, 255, 255);">that modulate sodium channel activity </span>by binding to certain receptors causing the channels to remain open, leading to paralysis and death. The mode of action of other pesticide classes also require the interaction of molecules of the active ingredient with specific sites in the organism.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">The Cavalca (2010) study and the pesticides of </span><span style="font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">Professor </span><span style="font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">Waris</span><span style="font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;"> appear to use dilutions of botanical products that have insecticidal activity (rather than using the 'law of similars'). However, given the level of dilution, there are no molecules left in the product, so how can it have any activity? One putative mechanism is through the '<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_memory">memory of water</a>', although the scientific evidence for water having a 'memory' is overwhelmingly negative. Even if this were not the case, however well the water ‘remembers’ the presence of the AI it would not have the right molecular structure that would allow it to bind to the appropriate receptors.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">Residual activity (i.e. molecules of the active ingredient remain on the leaf once the water has evaporated and is picked up by insects coming into contact with it) is an important feature of the success of many insecticides. If the only trace of the AI is in the memory of the water and the water evaporates, does the leaf need to remember the water's memory of the molecules?</span><br />
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<b>Efficacy?</b><br />
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<span style="font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">In the absence of any data from </span><span style="font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">Professor Dr Iftikhar Waris</span><span style="font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">, are there any possible ways in which they could have found insecticidal activity from a product containing little or no active ingredient? </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">Well perhaps…</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">Many pesticides contain additional chemicals that increase effectiveness. For example, a wetting agent ensures that the surface tension of the product is lowered significantly to allow the it to spread across the leaf surface as much as possible. Direct application of water plus wetting agent (but minus the active ingredient) can still kill many insects (particularly if small and relatively immobile) by drowning and should always be included in any efficacy studies as one of the controls.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">The article suggests that it works by increasing plant vigour. A healthier plant will be better able to utilise it’s own defence mechanisms against pests, so if the product contains ingredients that promote the health of the plant they may have reduced pest problems. How a product that is essentially water can show that sort of effect in a properly controlled trial remains a mystery to me. </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">I hope that </span><span style="font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">Professor </span><span style="font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">Waris and other proponents of this technique will publish the results of their trials and allow the scientific community to understand the way the treatments work. </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">Without a body of work showing positive results, published in the appropriate peer reviewed literature, the answer to my original question remains</span><span style="font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;"> almost certainly not and I would suggest that reliance on such products is almost certainly a mistake. </span></div>
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<b>References</b></div>
<span style="font-size: x-small;">Cavalca, P.A.M., Lolis, M.I.GdA, Reis, B., Bonato, C.M. (2010). Homeopathic and Larvicide Effect of <i>Eucalyptus cinerea </i>Essential Oil against <i>Aedes aegypti.</i> <i>Brazilian Archives of Biology and Technology,</i> <b>53</b>: 835 - 843. (<a href="http://www.scielo.br/pdf/babt/v53n4/v53n4a12.pdf">PDF</a>)</span></div>The Random Entomologisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07000808027668312820noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6861530736120569065.post-4508264466919325842010-11-02T12:07:00.000+00:002010-11-02T12:13:55.909+00:00Climate Change and Agro-EcosystemsThe potential impacts of the changing climate (and I am going with the broad consensus that the global climate is undergoing relatively rapid change) on agro-ecosystems are diverse and includes a possible asynchrony between organisms that have, for example, evolved either mutually beneficial relationships (e.g. bees and flowering plants) or predator-prey relationships.<br />
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In general, spring is advancing [remember: climate not weather, trends not point data] leading to earlier flowering and emergence of insects (among other things).<br />
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Theoretically, this could cause significant problems if (for example):<br />
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<ol><li>Early flowering crops (e.g. apple) flower significantly in advance of their pollinators (honey bees) emergence and population build up. Alternatively if the pollinators emerge before there are any flowers they may starve and die. Both could lead to poor pollination and low yield.</li>
<li>Pest and predator emergence is too far apart leading to increased pest populations and a requirement for increase pesticide treatments.</li>
</ol>Interest in <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phenology">phenology </a>has been increasing in the UK following the enormous success of the <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/nature/uk/">Springwatch project</a> (and Autumn Watch etc) which grew from the efforts of Dr Tim Sparks (at the time a researcher at the Centre for Ecology and Hydrology in Cambridge) to recreate a <a href="http://www.naturescalendar.org.uk/research/phenology.htm">Phenology Network</a> in the UK. Tim is still closely involved in the Phenology Network and continues to research in this area.<br />
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It was a recent paper (Sparks et al, 2010) from Tim and his Polish colleagues that triggered this first post (others are likely to be similarly stumbled upon). They reported a trend over 25 years (1985 - 2009) where the first cleansing flight of the Honey Bee (<i>Apis mellifera</i>) become earlier by 1 month and concluded that this was due to the increasing temperature during spring at the study sites in Poland. Some early flowering plant species nearby had also developed earlier by around 20 days over a 30 year period.<br />
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The authors suggest that <i>"This earlier activity gives hope that the reported earlier flowering of many native and cultivated species will not cause a pollination synchrony crisis"</i> but, quite correctly, stress the need for further research in this area.<br />
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Frankly, if some of the energy spent arguing about who is responsible for the current changing climate were redirected to increasing the research on what the longer term effects will be and how we should prepare for the challenges they will bring, I would be much happier!<br />
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<div style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><b>References</b></div><div style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">Sparks, TH; Langowska, A; Glazaczow, A; Wilkaniec, Z; Bienkowska, M; Tryjanowski, P. 2010. Advances in the timing of spring cleaning by the honeybee <i>Apis mellifera</i> in Poland. <i>Ecological Entomology, </i>DOI: 10.1111/j.1365-2311.2010.01226.x</span></div><div style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1365-2311.2010.01226.x/abstract">http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1365-2311.2010.01226.x/abstract</a></span></div>The Random Entomologisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07000808027668312820noreply@blogger.com1