nikunj suratwala | Pest Control India

First butterfly survey at Silent Valley National Park

Being one of the largest havens of butterflies and odonates in the nation, the Silent Valley National Park here will witness a first of its kind survey of its unique Lepidopteran fauna beginning Friday.

The four-day exercise is being done by the national park authorities with the involvement of the Travancore Natural History Society.

Apart from home to 400 species of moths and 96 species of butterflies, the Silent Valley is the end point of annual migration of butterflies from Coorg Hills and major points in the Western and Eastern Ghats. Every winter, thousands of butterflies of Alabatross species migrate to Silent Valley and return by the end of the season.

According to Wildlife Warden Shilpa V. Kumar, at least 18 species of butterflies in the Silent Valley are endemic and extremely rare. Among them, eight enjoy protected status under the Indian Wildlife Act. The survey will help gather more information apart from improving facilities for the butterflies and odonates in the national park, which is also home to the endangered lion-tailed macaques.

The first such time

“This is the first time a combined butterfly and odonate survey is being done at the national park. The invertebrates of this unique forest ecosystem are less studied and require more attention. This survey will be definitely adding to the database and fill in knowledge gaps on Indian butterflies,” said Ms. Shilpa in an interaction with The Hindu .

“Butterflies are essential part of any natural ecosystem. They are beneficial insects as they are pollinators and ecological indicators. The presence of odonates also can be taken as an indication of good ecosystem quality,” she said.

The survey will begin on August 12 with a formal meeting at Mukkali, where the invited participants, researchers, and experts will be briefed about the strategy and survey methodology. After the meeting, the delegates will be taken to seven base camps inside the park. These base camps are strategically located covering all the elevations and habitats of the region.

The formal fieldwork begins on August 13 and extends to August 14. The survey team will be lead by V.C. Balakrishnan, Kiran C.G., Balchandran, and other experts from Kerala and Tamil Nadu.

Source :www.thehindu.com
Author :K.A. Shaji

BNHS workshop on insects in Raj Bhavan park

Nagpur: For the first time, the Rajbhavan Biodiversity Park will now be open for students to explore and study about the insect world. The Bombay Natural History Society (BNHS) is starting special workshops on butterfly and insects called ‘Creepy-Crawly/Flyer’. During the workshop, interaction program will be held to explain life cycle of various species of common insects, butterflies, spiders and dragonflies, and their role in the ecosystem. Students will also be taken to field trips at the Biodiversity Park to record their observations.

BNHS officials said that the park, developed in 30 hectare area of Raj Bhavan, offers an excellent opportunity for nature education and conservation. “The insect world is the largest life group but also the least explored. In this workshop, students will get a chance to learn about their behavior,” they added.

The workshop will be held every Saturday starting from August 13. “In August and September, we will focus on insects and butterflies. Later, workshops will be held on herpetology and ornithology,” said BNHS official. The fees for 40-50 students along with two teachers will be Rs200. For more details, schools can contact — 9552033122.

Source :Times of India

Diversity of indoor insects, spiders adds to life’s luxuries in high-income neighborhoods

Here’s something new for real estate agents to boast about in posh neighborhoods: houses with a bigger variety of insects and spiders.

Maybe that’s not the best selling point. But what’s called a “luxury effect” appeared among more than 10,000 arthropod samples collected from the insides of 50 houses in urban and suburban Raleigh, N.C. Depending on the house, arthropods from 24 to 128 distinct scientific families showed up, says entomologist Misha Leong of the California Academy of Sciences in San Francisco. Houses on city blocks with higher average incomes tended toward greater diversity and houses on low-income blocks often had less, she and her colleagues report August 3 in Biology Letters. An average home had more than 100 arthropod species.

Other researchers have linked wealth with greater diversity of a home’s (outdoor) birds, lizards, bats and plants. As far as Leong knows, however, this is the first evidence of arthropod variety as a perk of wealth.

Researchers didn’t try to measure the abundance of arthropods but looked at the diversity. Many of the arthropod roommates found in the great indoors are so harmless that homeowners had never heard of them. Gall midge flies showed up in 100 percent of houses studied, and dark-winged fungus gnats lived in 96 percent. Both were more common than Blattidae cockroaches (in 74 percent of homes).

Source : www.sciencenews.org
Author : Susan Milius

Newly discovered big-headed ants use spines for support

The newest and thorniest members of a diverse ant family may have extra help holding their heads high.

Found in the rainforest of Papua New Guinea, Pheidole drogon and Pheidole viserion worker ants have spines protruding from their thoraxes. For many ant species, the spiky growths are a defense against birds and other predators. But Eli Sarnat and colleagues suggest the spines might instead be a muscular support for the ants’ oversized heads, which the insects use to crush seeds. The heads “are so big that it looks like it would be difficult to walk,” says Sarnat, an entomologist at the Okinawa Institute of Science & Technology Graduate University in Japan.

Micro‒CT scans of worker ants with larger heads revealed bundles of thoracic muscle fibers within spines just behind their heads. Worker ants with smaller heads did not have muscles in their spines, the researchers report online July 27 in PLOS One. More research is needed to establish the spines’ function and understand why they evolved, Sarnat says. While buff spines may support big heads, hollow spines probably keep predators at bay, the researchers suspect.

Researchers named the ants after two fearsome dragons, Drogon and Viserion, in the popular book and TV series Game of Thrones.

Source : www.sciencenews.org
Author : Cassie Martin

This monsoon, adopt natural ways to keep mosquitoes at bay

With the monsoon going on, the threat of dengue is looming large and people are adopting all types of measures to ward off mosquitoes. Experts from city have also suggested the use of some plants that help in keeping mosquitoes away.

A city-based naturopathy expert said lemongrass had a citrusy scent that is unbearable to insects. “Placing crushed lemongrass leaves in window sills will shoo away mosquitoes from entering your house,” he said.

Meanwhile, Sheenam, a nursery owner, said many people were buying marigold these days as they were also said to be helpful in warding off mosquitoes. “Usually used as ornamental plants, marigolds are also effective in avoiding mosquitoes from coming near your homes. This plant contains a compound called Pyrethrum that is commonly used as an ingredient in store-bought insect repellents. It’s best to place marigold at the entrances of your homes to avoid mosquitoes from coming in,” she added.

Awareness campaign
A community health centre at Sahnewal held a camp to create awareness regarding dengue. SMO Dr JP Singh said people should not let water stagnate around their houses as it acts as a breeding ground for mosquitoes.

He advocated people to observe dry day on every Friday by drying their coolers. Pamphlets were distributed among public to make them aware regarding the do’s and don’ts.

Symptoms :
The symptoms of dengue include high fever, severe headaches, joint and muscle pain, vomiting, skin rash and mild bleeding.

Precautions :
Mosquito repellents and creams should be used
Anti-mosquito sprays should be used daily, especially behind the curtains and below tables
Water from the pots kept in the drawing rooms should be changed every week
Don’t keep uncovered utensils, pots, tyres etc on the roof top or in open
Don’t allow fresh water to store near houses

Plants that will keep mosquitoes away :
Citronella
Lemongrass
Mint and Tulsi
Basil and Rosemary
Marigold

Source : www.tribuneindia.com
Author : Manav Mander

Genetic roots of insect’s waterproof coating could lead to innovative pest control

When we knocked out spidey in adult flies, the flies exhibited several striking features: their lifespan was shortened by about 50 percent, they lost almost all of their waxy coating and flies frequently got stuck to the sides of the plastic vials and were unable to free themselves,” said Yew, an assistant researcher based in the Pacific Biosciences Research Center of UH Mānoa’s School of Ocean and Earth Science and Technology.
“This last feature was reminiscent of the comic book character Spider-Man, which is why we named the gene spidey.”
Spidey is important for regulating levels of a steroid hormone, which maintains wax-producing cells. This hormone was already known to play a crucial role in the development and metamorphosis of fly larvae. The researchers did not expect that steroid hormones would play such a central role in maintaining adult tissues, such as the wax-producing cells.
“We did this work in vinegar flies, which is a major model organism,” said Yew. “From here, perhaps we can bridge to pest species.”Yew and her colleagues now plan to knock out spidey in pest species like Oriental, Mediterranean and melon fruit flies, which are a major threat to agriculture, and possibly mosquitoes, which can carry human diseases, to see if they lose their waterproofing ability like the vinegar flies. She says it would be at least four more years of more research, testing and government approvals before the discovery could be used as a pest control.

Source: www.sciencedaily.com

The Amazingly Complex World of Insect Navigation

Dung beetles. Most people have seen footage of them rolling their balls of dung across a field, like little loggers at a log rolling contest. The beetles use the dung either as a material where eggs can be laid or as food. The intricate movements that they use to roll the dung are incredible, but itâ€™s equally amazing how far they roll their spherical cargo. Moreover, they always roll the dung balls in a straight line. How do they know where theyâ€™re going?

Turns out they use a navigation technique mariners in the days of sailing ships would have recognized: Dung beetles navigate using the stars. The beetles take mental â€œsnapshotsâ€ of celestial positions. By comparing the positions of stars or other celestial bodies during each snapshot, they can keep themselves on course.

But what about during the day? Most insects, including the beetles, use the sun. Far from their nest, ants, for example, can orient themselves using the sun as a reference point. This even works when the sun is hidden by clouds. Just as a smart explorer brings a compass in case the GPS doesnâ€™t work, ants have a backup plan. When the sun is hidden, ants can orient themselves using polarized light, or light that only vibrates in one plane. As sunlight passes through the atmosphere, it excites electrons in all directions. Some properties of the atmosphere cause light to polarize, or only excite electrons in one plane.

These atmospheric properties cause different degrees of polarization at different angles to the sun; if ants can detect polarization, they can detect the angle of the sun and use the sun to navigate even if the sun is invisible.

Not only can ants detect polarized light, their compound eye diverts polarized light and direct sunlight into completely different navigational systems. When both polarized and direct sunlight are present, the ants will rely first on the internal compass derived from polarized light. The one drawback is that ants have to learn their local sky first; drop them in an unfamiliar area and they will not be able to orient themselves. Ants who were raised with only a restricted view of the sky could navigate, but made many mistakes based on missing data. Many different insects, including bees, navigate in this manner.

Some of these navigation systems are incredibly sophisticated. Insects donâ€™t have a lot going on in the brain department, but thereâ€™s enough capacity to remember the positions of celestial bodies or create detailed compasses based on the type of light available. Itâ€™s enough to makes you wonder what other kinds of intelligence exist in the animal kingdom that we just havenâ€™t noticed yet.

Source: daily.jstor.org

A Strange Butterfly-Ant Relationship Discovered in Peru

The immature caterpillar stages are actively tended by multiple species of ants, including the bullet ant Paraponera clavata, and were observed feeding on the extrafloral nectaries of the bamboo. Pupation of A. annulifera then occurs on the host plant near the base of the bamboo.

We also observed the butterflies stealing bamboo sap secretions from the ants, a potential form of kleptoparasitism which was previously unknown to occur with these adult butterflies.

Perhaps the butterflies are utilizing a pheromone from their larval stage, potentially allowing the caterpillars to take advantage of the ants, which would normally attack other invading insects. The three red spots on the butterfly wing also look strikingly like the red ants that they associate with, and perhaps this wing pattern serves as a form of mimicry (if a butterfly looks like red ants that bite and sting, a bird may be less inclined to eat it). This is just a hypothesis at the moment, and future work should test this putative mimicry wing pattern and chemical signals. We hope to continue investigating this fascinating species, because there certainly seems to be more to this tropical butterfly than meets the eyes.

Source: Entomology today
Writer: Aaron Pomerantz

Super-moth INVASION: Mutant insects to attack crops as numbers EXPLODE

AN INVASION of super-moths which attack crops including cabbages and cauliflowers are expected to arrive in Britain from eastern Europe.

Experts have warned of a potential explosion in numbers of the insect after exceptionally high numbers of moths arrived in the UK.

The diamondback moth (Plutella xylostella), which can be blown long distances on the wind, is considered to be a super-pest because it is resistant to most insecticides, and the centimetre-long caterpillars can cause losses to growers.

Researchers say that if the weather is warm and suitable for breeding there could be an “explosion” in numbers by the end of the season.

They say they do not know exactly where the moths have come from, but it could be eastern Europe or Russia.

Chris Shortall, a research scientist and co-ordinator of the Rothamsted light-trap network in Hertfordshire said he had seen higher than usual numbers of the moth in traps at the research centre, and online reports of a high incidence of diamondbacks.

He said: “Normally, we gather the data at the end of the year from the volunteers that run light-traps around the country, but on the basis of these reports I contacted them and asked them to provide the data that they have so far.

“They reported much higher numbers than usual. In our light-traps here at Rothamsted we have seen in two nights the number of diamondback moths that we usually record in a year, and this is reflected elsewhere in the network.

“I’m concerned for cabbage and cauliflower growers, which is why I wanted to inform the relevant organisations and growers as early as possible.

“If the summer weather is warm and favourable for the reproduction of the moths we could see an explosion in the number of them by the end of the season.”

According to long-standing annual records from the Rothamsted Insect Survey, numbers reported so far are exceptionally high, and of a similar level to that seen in 1996.

The diamondback moth is considered to be a super-pest

Experts hope to record numbers once the diamondback moth caterpillars have hatched

Sites in eastern England and the Channel Islands have reported around 10 times the normal yearly total over a period of a few nights, with more than 1,000 reported over three evenings from a trap in Berkshire, and 310 in one night in Guernsey.

Diamondback moths have also been found in large numbers in trap samples from cabbage fields in Kirton, Lincolnshire, and Wellesbourne, Warwickshire, the experts said.

The scientists will examine the moths to see if they are resistant to pesticides, and find a way to tackle them.

Dr Steve Foster, senior scientist at Rothamsted Research, said: “We will aim to study the moths that are immigrating currently to the UK to identify whether they are resistant to the available insecticides and look for potential management methods.

Research scientist Chris Shortall said he has seen higher numbers than usual

“This could take up to a few weeks.”

He urged growers to speak to their authorised advisers on spraying their crops and said the experts would provide all scientific information when it became available.

Mark Parsons, head of moth conservation at Butterfly Conservation, said the recent migration of diamondback moths, are likely due to following winds from their breeding grounds, was unusual for its large numbers but not completely unexpected in the UK.

He said: “This is an occasional minor pest in this country on brassicas and it is possible given the numbers this year it may prove to be a bit of a nuisance, but we won’t know for a few weeks until any caterpillars have hatched.â€

Source: Science Daily
Writer: KATIE MANSFIELD

Ancient ants leaving a modern trail

It is thought that ants evolved about 150 million years ago and have risen to dominance in the past 60 million years. They are now everywhere and while they are not always welcome on your kitchen counter, they are critical to ecosystems around the world for many roles, including seed dispersal and decomposition. There are a variety of factors that can impact diversity in geographically-clustered ant communities, but it can be difficult to decipher the most important biogeographic influences on these ant populations. Patricia Wepfer, Dr. Benoit GuÃ©nard (currently at the University of Hong Kong), and Prof. Evan Economo from the Biodiversity and Biocomplexity Unit at Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology Graduate University (OIST) unravelled the web of biogeographic components to find the influences that most significantly affect ant communities. They recently published their results in the Journal of Biogeography.

“I was interested in how different these communities could be across Asia,” Patricia Wepfer, first author and OIST Ph.D. student said. “We wanted to know how a community [of ants] is composed in different places and why it is composed in that way.”

The team assembled a large dataset of ant species occurrence records for 159 areas in Asia ranging from the Ryukyu Islands to Taiwan and coastal regions of South Korea. From this data, they determined which ants existed where and what factors may be affecting the communities.

They then analysed whether the climate — temperature, rainfall — and/or space — geographical distance, water barriers — made more of a difference to the composition of ant communities. The researchers also looked more closely to see whether historical land connections significantly affect ant communities. During the Last Glacial Maximum in the Pleistocene Epoch, approximately 26,000 years ago, many areas and islands in Asia were connected. As the land moved, the ocean began to cover these areas and create separate land masses. Surprisingly, ant population configurations of today are very much influenced by these past land connections that existed in the Pleistocene.

“Interestingly, the past land connections during the Last Glacial Maximum are more important in explaining the existing ant community patterns, than the way land is configured now,” Wepfer said. “This may be due to the fact that historical land connections existed for a much longer time than the connections that we have today and ants take a long time to distribute.”

While historical land connections are the most surprising factor in determining the make-up of a geographically-clustered ant community, ecologists also have to consider current and recognized influences, such as the temperature. From the data, the team determined that the temperature played the largest role in the differentiation between ant communities. With the advent of climate change, this may have many implications on ant ecosystems, as well as the ecosystems they work to sustain.

“Temperature is the dominant factor and plays a major role in shaping ant communities,” Wepfer said. “Climate change will likely change these ant communities.”

It is well-known in ecology that temperature is of the utmost importance in shaping species distributions, but it is important to keep in mind the spatial influence upon ant communities.

“In order to understand why species are where they are, we need to think about the current climate and land connections between areas,” Economo said. “But also what the connections between areas were during the Last Glacial Maximum, which is when the sea levels were very low.”

The historical land connections can reveal how much a structural change, whether that is the shifting of continents or even on a much smaller scale, like building a dam or paving a road, can influence ecosystems.

“It is important to be aware of things that happen in the past for species composition today,” Wepfer said. “Whatever major structural changes that are made to the environment can result in different connectivity between habitats and spaces.”

Source: Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology Graduate University – OIST (Science Daily)
Date: June 9, 2016