Once ubiquitous, Florida's brown lizards scarce after cold winter

The native: A male green anole inflates its throat to attract a female, which may be tough since winter took a toll on the lizards. Because the brown Cuban anole was hit harder, some say the green anole should come back in larger numbers.

Joyce Dunn moved to the Tampa Bay area in 1971, when Carolina anoles, those small, svelte green lizards, ruled the land.

"We didn't have those ugly brown ones," the Brandon resident said, referring to the brown Cuban anole. "They took over and seems like that's all you see anymore."

Used to, anyway.

Dunn, 72, said she was stunned to find thawing lizards on her sidewalks, grass and garden hose after a string of frigid days and nights this winter.

"They weren't all dried up. Just lifeless. I've never seen anything like it," she said.

Throughout the bay area, many have noticed a distinct lack of lizards this spring.

They once were ubiquitous, scurrying around, stalking insects, the males doing pushups and flaunting their orange dewlaps — those flaps of skin under their jaws designed to intimidate competitors or attract mates.

"No doubt the freeze has knocked them way back," said Peter Meylan, a natural sciences professor at Eckerd College. "The few that made it are just lucky. They probably found a warm spot in a garden hose or a potted plant that may have been covered with a blanket."

According to the National Weather Service, this has been the coldest start to any year in St. Petersburg since record-keeping began in 1914, in central Pasco (where record keeping began in 1895) and in Brooksville (1892), and the second coldest in Tampa (1890). The combined average temperature for the first three months of 2010 was 6 to 8 degrees below normal.

For the Cuban anole, a tropical invader that has largely displaced the native green anole, it's Armageddon.

The invader: The invasive brown Cuban anole sometimes eats the green anole.

The chilly weather didn't allow them to bask in the warm sun, leading to a depression in their metabolic systems, said Bill Kern, associate professor of entomology and nematology at the University of Florida's Fort Lauderdale Research and Education Center.

"They did not have to physically freeze to be killed. We suspect that many that died after the cold spell were killed by opportunistic infections and weakened immune systems."

Whether green or brown, anoles do consume many different types of insects and spiders. They are dinner for snakes and birds. Cats and dogs think of them as play toys.

But Kern points out that the lack of brown anoles does not mean Florida will be overrun by insects or that birds and snakes will go hungry. Fortunately or not, Florida has no shortage of creepy, crawly creatures that keep in check all the other things that creep and crawl.

The brown anoles first made it to the Florida Keys in the 1880s from the Bahamas and Cuba, but didn't establish a strong toehold until the 1940s at seaports and urban areas, such as Hillsborough and Pinellas counties. They weren't a major presence in Pasco County until 30 years later, according to the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission's Web site.

Females usually lay one or two eggs per clutch. They are prolific, though, and can lay a new clutch every 14 days if the food supply is adequate. Eggs are normally laid April through July, so babies, hatching four to six weeks later, appear May through August or September, said Kern, who recently spotted a pregnant brown anole with a swollen belly.

Cuban anoles are fast and athletic and can outcompete the green anoles — sometimes eating the smaller ones.

Though they are scarce right now, the browns will make their way back, but it may take some time to reach their former numbers, Kern said.

"The good news is, the cold weather was bad for invasive exotics," Kern said. "Some think that since the brown anoles took such a big hit, we may see the native green anoles showing up in better numbers."

Fast facts

The competitors

Green anoles

Description: A Florida native, the females have a light stripe down their backs. When two males battle for territory or a female, the winner turns bright green and the loser turns brown.

Habitat: All of Florida and as far north as Tennessee. Generally a tree dweller, it will escape predators by running up.

Brown anoles

Description: Gray, black, brown and sometimes speckled. Females have a diamond pattern on their backs.

Habitat: A ground dweller, they are present in most of Florida and the Keys; not cold-tolerant.

What's up with the pushups?

Both brown and green males do pushups as a threat display.

Tails on your tile?

Both brown and green anoles can cast off their tails at will when threatened. The tail piece continues to twitch, attracting the attention of a predator as the anole flees. The tail will grow back.

Source: www.audubon.org

Plant Growth Aided by Insect-Feeding Animals

Add insect-feeding birds, bats and lizards to the front lines of the battle against global climate change.


Summarizing the results of more than 100 experiments conducted on four continents, UC Irvine ecologist Kailen A. Mooney and colleagues found that these insect-gobbling animals increase plant growth by reducing the abundance of plant-feeding insects and the damage they do to the plant life that helps mitigate global warming.

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An Eastern Bluebird consumes a meal of leaf-eating caterpillar. (Credit: Photo by Mike Onyon)

Our efforts solidify the importance of birds, bats, lizards and other similar animals to ecosystem health, and underscores the importance of conserving these species in the face of global change," said Mooney, an assistant professor in ecology and evolutionary biology.

The results come at a time when the importance of birds and other insectivores as plant protectors has come into doubt, Mooney added. Studies on bird, bat and lizard diets show they devour both plant-feeding insects and the spiders and other insect predators that eat plant feeders.

Recognizing these complex feeding relationships, Mooney said it had become unclear whether animals like birds reduce plant-feeding insect populations, or whether they might in fact be protecting them from spiders and the like.

"It has long been hypothesized that birds and other insect-feeding animals may protect plants by keeping plant-feeding insects in check in accordance with the adage, 'The enemy of my enemy is my friend,' " Mooney said. "Our study provides the most comprehensive support of this hypothesis to date. It shows that despite feeding on predatory insects, birds, bats and lizards still act as plant protectors by having net negative effects on plant-feeding insects."

Study results appear in early online edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences the week of April 5.

Daniel S. Gruner of the University of Maryland; Nicholas A Barber of the University of Missouri, St. Louis; Sunshine A. Van Bael of the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute in Panama; Stacy M. Philpott of the University of Toledo; and Russell Greenberg of the Smithsonian Migratory Bird Center in Washington, D.C., contributed to this study.

Pesky flies keep Asian mosquitoes in check

A Florida midge munches down Asian tiger mosquitoes more so than native ones, researchers say, maybe because the foreign larvae wiggles more in the water.


Whatever the reason, the result is fewer of the more aggressive mosquito and the nasty human diseases it harbors.

A midge larva, right, snacks on an Asian tiger mosquito larva. Researchers say this helps keep the foreign mosquito, which carries viral diseases, in check. (University of Florida

"It is positive because this invasive mosquito is much more dangerous from a public health standpoint," said Phil Lounibos, an entomologist with the University of Florida's Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences in Vero Beach.

He and Steven Juliano, an entomologist at Illinois State University, published their findings in the journal Oecologia.

Asian tiger mosquitoes spread dengue, which causes high fever, bladder problems, headaches, eye pain, extreme dizziness and loss of appetite.

They also spread Chikungunya, another viral

disease marked by joint pain that can last weeks, months or even years.

The Asian tiger mosquito gained a stronger foothold in Florida and elsewhere in the 1980s, when the United States began importing large numbers of used tires from Asia. Its eggs and larvae traveled here in the water inside the tires.

Entomologists expected the more aggressive Asian pest to drive the native mosquito to near extinction. That probably wouldn't matter to most Floridians, but it is important to scientists and others committed to importance of biodiversity.

Nature's defense

Given the midge's merits, mosquito controllers should try to spare the fly, the researchers said, lest they lose one of their best defenses against the Asian tiger mosquito.

"What we're observing is how a native, rather obscure midge can provide a natural biocontrol," Lounibos said.

Current mosquito-spraying methods kill some order of midges, the researchers said, but the extent is unknown.

They suggest more study of how predator-prey relationships help control such pests, as a possible alternative to spraying.

"I'm not saying that spraying for the native mosquitoes or other pest control efforts aren't necessary," Juliano said in a media release. "But it's important to understand that there is a balance, and that you can't tweak one aspect of nature without affecting many others.

"We owe it to ourselves to try to understand that balance."

Mother Birds Know Best -- Even Before Birth

(Mar. 27, 2010) — Mother birds communicate with their developing chicks before they even hatch by leaving them messages in the egg, new research by a team from the Department of Zoology, University of Cambridge, has found.

By changing conditions within the egg, canary mothers leave a message for their developing chicks about the life they will face after birth. In response, nestlings adjust the development of their begging behaviour.

If chicks get a message that they will be reared by generous parents then they beg more vigorously for food after hatching. But chicks that are destined to be raised by meaner parents end up being much less demanding.

By attending to messages in the egg, nestlings gain weight more rapidly because they match their demands to the parents' supply of food, and can avoid either begging too little or wasting effort on unrewarded begging.

The Cambridge team made the discovery using fostering experiments, exchanging eggs between canaries' nests so that the chicks grew up in an environment that they were not expecting.

"This work changes our understanding of the pre-natal environment in birds," says Dr Rebecca Kilner of the University of Cambridge, who led the research.

"We've known for about twenty years that maternal substances in the egg can influence how chicks develop, but the common assumption is that they are a means by which mothers manipulate their offspring in a way that suits the mother more than the chick.

"What we've shown is the reverse: these substances are actually there to suit the chick. If we muck up the message in the egg experimentally, it is the chick that is penalised directly rather than the mother."

State & Federal Agencies Work Together To Stop Destructive Snail

They are asking the public for help.
Thursday March 11th, 2010

TALLAHASSEE -- The Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services, the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service have joined together in a cooperative effort to prevent giant African snails (GAS) from making their way into Florida and are asking the public for help.

Giant African snails are considered a serious plant pest and potential threat to public health because of their ability to destroy plants, damage ornamental plants and spread disease. Giant African snails are illegal to import into the United States without a permit, and currently no permits have been issued.

Because of vigilant federal and state inspections and public education efforts, Florida has been successful in keeping these dangerous mollusks from becoming established again in Florida. Once established, this pest can create a giant swath of destruction and an alert public can prevent that from happening.

For the last several decades, there was no known giant African snail in Florida. However, the state is no stranger to this massive mollusk. In 1966, a boy smuggled three snails into Miami as pets and his grandmother subsequently released them into her garden. Seven years later, more than 18,000 snails were found. It took almost 10 years and more than $1 million to eradicate this pest from Florida. This is the only known successful giant African snail eradication program on record.

Scientists consider the GAS to be one of the most damaging snails in the world because it is known to consume at least 500 different types of plants. The snails can also cause structural damage to buildings; they consume plaster, stucco and other calcareous materials needed to grow their shells. In large numbers, GAS can cause extensive damage.

Public health concerns also surround this and other types of snails because they can carry parasites. Because of these health concerns, it is recommended to use gloves when handling snails and to wash hands thoroughly afterward.

The giant African snail, Achatina fulica, is one of the largest land snails in the world growing up to 8 inches in length and 4.5 inches in diameter. When full grown, the shell consists of seven to nine whorls (spirals), with a long and greatly swollen body whorl. The brownish shell covers at least half the length of the snail. Each snail can live as long as nine years and contains both female and male reproductive organs. After a single mating session, each snail can produce 100 to 400 eggs. In a typical year, every mated adult lays about 1,200 eggs.

Achatina fulica is originally from East Africa and has established itself throughout the Indo-Pacific Basin, including the Hawaiian Islands. This pest has also been introduced into the Caribbean islands of Martinique and Guadeloupe with recent detections in Saint Lucia and Barbados.

The Cooperative Agriculture Pest Survey (CAPS), a USDA grant-funded program which is managed by the Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services, has stepped up inspections following a recent GAS interception but no additional giant African snails were found.

Anyone who thinks they have seen a giant African snail, or may have information on illegal snail smuggling or import activity, is asked to please call the Department's toll-free helpline at 1-888-397-1517. Please do not release them or give them away. The cooperation of the public in identifying any of these pests will be greatly appreciated and will help prevent the establishment of a destructive creature.

For information on invasive snail species, visit http://www.fl-dpi.com/

Watch that "S" Car Go!

                                                            
 

Viper Venom: Too Far to Go In the Pursuit Against Wrinkles?

It was a slow day for bug news, so I thought that you may find this interesting... ~ J Beucher

 by BellaSugar Australia

Granted, I don't like wrinkles. Show me a woman who does. But then again, show me a woman (except Terri Irwin) who likes snakes. I'll forgive you for being a little confused by where I'm going with this, but let me bring you up to speed: the latest wonder potion being dubbed Botox in a bottle is Rodial Glamoxy™ Snake Serum (approx $252).

WTF, right? Well it's not as strange as it seems. OK, it is. The serum contains syn-ake; a neuropeptide that imitates the effect that the Temple Viper's venom has upon its victim. Thankfully, not death. Just a lifted face, frozen muscles and fine lines and wrinkles that are suitable plumped.

Kate Moss, Naomi Campbell and Katie Holmes are said to be big fans, and pre-launch demand in the UK topped the 100,000 people mark. What's gotten them all so excited? Presumably the research that shows in just 90 seconds, wrinkles are less noticeable. According to Rodial President, Maria Hatzistefanis, the non-invasive Botox alternative is unmatched in the marketplace. What do you think? Tempted to try it for yourself?

Of course you can always try this! ! ~ Jim Beucher

Does Promiscuity Prevent Extinction?

(Feb. 26, 2010) — Promiscuous females may be the key to a species' survival, according to new research by the Universities of Exeter and Liverpool. Published February 25 in Current Biology, the study could solve the mystery of why females of most species have multiple mates, despite this being more risky for the individual.

These are Drosophila pseudoobscura mating. A new study by the Universities of Exeter and Liverpool, UK, on these fruitfly suggests promiscuous females may be the key to a species' survival. (Credit: University of Exeter)

Known as 'polyandry' among scientists, the phenomenon of females having multiple mates is shared across most animal species, from insects to mammals. This study suggests that polyandry reduces the risk of populations becoming extinct because of all-female broods being born. This can sometimes occur as a result of a sex-ratio distortion (SR) chromosome, which results in all of the Y chromosome 'male' sperm being killed before fertilisation. The all-female offspring will carry the SR chromosome, which will be passed on to their sons in turn resulting in more all-female broods. Eventually there will be no males and the population will die out.

For this study, the scientists worked with the fruitfly Drosophila pseudoobscura. They gave some populations the opportunity to mate naturally, meaning that the females had multiple partners. The others were restricted to having one mate each. They bred several generations of these populations, so they could see how each fared over time.

Over fifteen generations, five of the twelve populations that had been monogamous became extinct as a result of males dying out. The SR chromosome was far less prevalent in the populations in which females had the opportunity to have multiple mates and none of these populations became extinct.

The study shows how having multiple mates can suppress the spread of the SR chromosome, making all-female broods a rarity. This is because males that carry the SR chromosome produce only half as many sperm as normal males. When a female mates with multiple males, their sperm will compete to fertilise her eggs. The few sperm produced by males carrying the SR chromosome are out-competed by the sperm from normal males, and the SR chromosome cannot spread.

Lead author Professor Nina Wedell of the University of Exeter said: "We were surprised by how quickly -- within nine generations -- a population could die out as a result of females only mating with one partner. Polyandry is such a widespread phenomenon in nature but it remains something of an enigma for scientists. This study is the first to suggest that it could actually save a population from extinction."

This study was funded by the Natural Environment Research Council.

The Biggest Loser: Maternal Obesity Puts a Load on Her Offspring That Lasts a Lifetime

(Feb. 13, 2010) — As if there are not enough reasons for obese people to lose weight, a new research report published online in The FASEB Journal adds several more. In a study involving rats, researchers from Duke University found that obesity in mothers causes cellular programming in utero that predisposes offspring to inflammation-related disorders (such as Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, type 2 diabetes, stroke, heart disease, and more) from the day that they are born, regardless of whether or not the offspring are obese themselves.

"We hope these data will eventually lead to treatments for obesity-associated problems, by the identification of novel targets within the immune system," said Staci D. Bilbo, Ph.D., co-author of the study, from the Department of Psychology and Neuroscience at Duke University in Durham, N.C. "Our hope is also that these data will lead people to consider the consequences of their dietary intakes not only for their own health, but also for their children's health, and potentially even their grandchildren's health."

To make this discovery, Bilbo and colleagues placed rats on one of three diets (low-fat, high-saturated fat, and high-trans fat) four weeks prior to mating and throughout pregnancy and lactation. The high-fat diets rendered the mice clinically obese. Researchers analyzed the brains of the newborn pups after challenge by inflammatory stimuli. Offspring born to mothers on the high-fat diets showed increased immune cell activation and release of injurious products (cytokines). This overshoot was already apparent on the day after birth. When the scientists continued to analyze the pup brains through their juvenile and adult years, and even after the rats were put on healthy low-fat diets, this hyper-response to inflammation remained dramatically increased compared to rats born to normal-weight mothers.

"If there ever was a maternal hex, obesity might be it," said Gerald Weissmann, M.D., Editor-in-Chief of The FASEB Journal, "and as it turns out, even after the weight comes off, the biggest loser isn't a mother, but her child."

Great Tits: Birds With Character

(Feb. 9, 2010) — Gene variation is the reason that some great tit populations are more curious than others. In humans and animals alike, individuals differ in sets of traits that we usually refer to as personality. An important part of the individual difference in personality is due to variation in the underlying genes. One gene, the dopamine receptor D4 gene, however, is known to influence novelty seeking and exploration behaviour in a range of species, including humans and birds.

Great tit pic(Credit: Henk Dikkers)

Researchers of the Max Planck Institute for Ornithology in Seewiesen now show that the gene’s influence on birds’ behaviour differs markedly between wild populations of great tits.

In 2007, researchers of the Max Planck Institute for Ornithology found a gene related to individual variation in exploratory behaviour in great tits. Birds with a certain variant of this so-called "dopamine receptor D4 gene" (DRD4 gene) showed stronger novelty seeking and exploration behaviour than individuals with other variants. This association was originally tested and found in a lab-raised group of birds.

Now, a large international group of researchers around Bart Kempenaers, director of the Max Planck Institute for Ornithology, Germany, repeated the test in adult wild birds captured in the field. Research groups from the Centre for Terrestrial Ecology in Heteren (NL), the Universities of Antwerp (Belgium) and Groningen (NL), and the Edward Grey Institute of field Ornithology in Oxford (UK) all measured exploratory behaviour of large numbers of great tits in a similar way. And they brought their data together to test the generality of the association between the different gene variants and exploration behaviour. "To our knowledge, this is the most extensive study of gene variants underlying personality-related behavioural variation in a free-living animal to date, and the first to compare different wild populations," says Peter Korsten, first author and a former member of Kempenaers' department.

Similar results in great tits and humans

To their surprise, the researchers found the association between the gene and the behaviour present in one population, but not in three others. "It was important to confirm the association between the DRD4 variants and exploratory behaviour in the original population," says Kempenaers, but he adds "We do not yet understand the differences between populations." However, the results mirror the outcome of similar research into gene-personality associations in humans, which also varies between populations. More than 30 studies confirmed that the DRD4 gene is associated with novelty seeking in humans, but large differences between populations were observed, and several studies did not find an effect.

"Perhaps further investigation of great tit populations could shed some light on the differences in outcome in the human populations," says Peter Korsten. The difference between populations is perhaps not that surprising, given the small effect of the gene's variants on the behaviour, and may be explained by a strong influence of the environment or through the effects of other (still unknown) genes.

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This article has nothing to do with pest, but there is no way I could pass up an article with that title to it!

Heavy-Metal Music, Other Sounds Aimed at Beetle Pests

A novel approach to controlling tree-destroying beetles uses piped-in rock music and backward recordings of Rush Limbaugh.

THE GIST:


Scientists believe they can combat insect damage by subjecting bark beetles to acoustic stress.
Rush Limbaugh, heavy-metal music and the beetles' own calls were used in the studies.
The research could lead to a chemical-free, environmentally friendly way to prevent insects from killing trees.
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Beetles don't like heavy metal or Rush Limbaugh, suggests new research, but the sounds that really drive them mad are manipulated versions of their own noises.

Beetles are destroying ponderosa, pinyon, lodgepole pines and other trees important to the ecosystem. The beetles have their place in the ecosystem too, of course, but climate change and human activities have allowed beetles to take over more than they should.

A bark beetle is shown. The insects infest and destroy trees, but acoustic stress may be one way to combat the pests.

To combat such infestations, scientists thought up the "nastiest, most offensive sounds" they could. Those included recordings of Guns & Roses, Queen, Rush Limbaugh and manipulated versions of the insects' own sounds.

The scientists then played these recordings near beetle-infested trees that they brought into a lab setting. The sounds disrupted tunneling, mating and reproduction for the beetles, making it harder for the insects to eat through the trees.

The project, dubbed "Beetle Mania," concluded that acoustic stress may disrupt the tenacious insects' feeding and even cause the beetles to kill each other, according to a presentation recently at the National Meeting of the Entomological Society of America.

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Richard Hofstetter, an entomology professor at Northern Arizona University who worked on the project, told Discovery News that "the most annoying sound" his colleague, Reagan McGuire, "could think of was Rush Limbaugh or rock music."

McGuire started to pump the sounds of Limbaugh into portions of infested tree trunks brought into their lab, but Hofstetter said McGuire "could not bear listening to Limbaugh, so he ended up playing Rush backwards, which still kept the voice and intonation the same, but the words were meaningless."

The researchers created "phloem sandwiches," slices of infested pine trees encased in Plexiglas, to build mini ant farm-like testing samples. Into these they next pumped heavy-metal music. They also continued to play the sounds made by the beetles.

The obvious musical choice would seem to have been The Beatles, but the scientists believe actual beetles wouldn't mind this band.

"I think bark beetles would be more disturbed by music that was very dynamic -- a lot of bangs, clicks, vibrations, and also periods of silence," Hofstetter explained. "So from what I know of The Beatles' music, I think bark beetles would probably prefer them over a lot of other music that is out there."

He and his colleagues found that while Limbaugh and the heavy metal initially bothered the beetles, the insects mostly ignored the sounds after a while.

The researchers next decided to record and manipulate the beetle-produced sounds. They focused on an aggression call produced by males of the "tree killer" Dendroctonus species.

By making this call longer and louder than usual, they altered the beetles' behavior.

"We found we could disrupt mating, tunneling and reproduction," Hofstetter said. "We could even make the beetles turn on each other, which normally they would not do."

This was particularly graphic when the researchers played the manipulated sounds right as a male and female beetle were about to mate.

Hofstetter said his team would "watch in horror as the male beetle would tear the female apart."

Wulfia Gronenberg, an associate professor of neuroscience, ecology and evolutionary biology at The University of Arizona, has also studied bark beetles. He told Discovery News, "I think what Dr. Hofstetter's team found is very interesting."

"There is still a lot of basic research to be done to better describe the hearing ability of the beetles, but after years of focusing on chemical signals, this is a promising new line of attack," Gronenberg said, adding that "the practical application will also require some new ideas, unless you want to put a loudspeaker on every tree."

Hofstetter said his team is currently seeking additional funding to develop systems, possibly ultrasonic, which would only affect the target pest species. The researchers hope to expand the use of acoustics in combating tree damage also produced by the emerald ash borer, Asian powder post beetles and other wood-eating insects.

Stunningly Preserved 165-Million-Year-Old Spider Fossil Found

Scientists have unearthed an almost perfectly preserved spider fossil in China dating back to the middle Jurassic era, 165 million years ago. The fossilized spiders, Eoplectreurys gertschi, are older than the only two other specimens known by around 120 million years.

The level of detail preserved in the fossils is amazing, said paleontologist Paul Selden of the University of Kansas and lead author of the study appearing Feb. 6 in Naturwissenschaften. “You go in with a microscope, and bingo! It’s fantastic.”

The fossils were found at a site called Daohugou in Northern China that is filled with fossilized salamanders, small primitive mammals, insects and water crustaceans. During the Jurassic era, the fossil bed was part of a lake in a volcanic region, Selden said.

Spider fossils from this period are rare, because the arachnids’ soft bodies don’t preserve well. The pristine fossil pictured in these photos was probably created when the spider was trapped in volcanic ash. The ultrafine clay particles squashed the spider without breaking up the animals’ delicate cuticle as more coarse sediment would, Selden said.

E. gertschi shows all the features of the modern members of the family, found in North America, suggesting it has evolved very little since the Jurassic period, Selden said. “The scimitar-shaped structure you notice out of the male is so distinctive,” he said. “Looking at modern ones, you think, well, it’s just a dead ringer.”

The findings also suggest this family of spiders, the Plectreuridae, was once much more widespread than it is today. Currently, the family has only been found living in California, Arizona, Mexico and Cuba. Yet 165 million years ago, they lived on a small continent called the North China Block.

“At some point something caused their range to contract to this part of southern North America,” Selden said. He speculates that changes in vegetation during an ice age or other climactic event wiped them out in other areas, “but they were still happy in these arid areas of the Southwest.”

Moths hitch a ride on jet streams to get to warmer climates

London: A new study has shown that migrating insects like moths can hitch a ride on favourable jet streams and adjust their flight direction to get to warmer climates.

According to a report in Nature News, the study used radar to track the movement of more than 100,000 noctuid moths, hawkmoths and butterflies as they migrated to northern Europe in the spring and south to the Mediterranean in autumn every year between 2000 and 2007.

Jason Chapman of Rothamsted Research, the agricultural research institute in Harpenden, UK, and his colleagues report that the insects can control the direction in which they fly, selecting the most favourable winds to maximize the distance they travel.

The team also found that insects tend to fly higher up, where the wind is fastest.

The silver Y noctuid moth, for example, flies 425 m above ground - higher than the top floor of the Empire State Building in New York.

How the moths detect these altitudes is still being studied, but sophisticated mechanisms that determine wind speed while they are flying help them to reach average speeds of 54 km an hour.

With an additional jet stream push from behind, they can achieve top speeds of up to 90 km an hour.

The moths seem to be able to detect the wind's direction and, using some sort of internal compass, correct their flight path.

These moths only take flight when winds are at least somewhat favourable - never flying across the wind or into it.

If winds don't completely align towards their destination, migrants can partially correct for that drift, keeping themselves on their preferred trajectory rather than simply being propelled downwind.

In spring, migration corresponded with the northward wind.

But in the autumn, migrants still arrived south even though the prevailing wind tended to blow eastward.
It is well known that migratory birds are able to control their flight direction, sometimes flying across the wind.
But because insects have a shorter lifespan than birds, they can't afford to waste time getting to their breeding grounds.

"Because insects fly slower than birds, they had to evolve a way to increase their speed. The way they've done this is to really exploit the wind," said Chapman.

"Insect migration was always thought to be a rather chancy process," said Chapman. "We show evidence that a wide range of insects exert quite a lot of control on their pathway and are not, in fact, at the wind's mercy," he added.

Fewer Honey Bee Colonies and Beekeepers Throughout Europe

Fewer Honey Bee Colonies and Beekeepers Throughout Europe


 (Feb. 5, 2010) — The number of bee colonies in Central Europe has decreased over recent decades. In fact, the number of beekeepers has been declining in the whole of Europe since 1985. This is the result of a study that has now been published by the International Bee Research Association, which for the first time has provided an overview of the problem of bee colony decline at the European level.

These are beekeepers and honey bees. (Credit: Peter Neumann)

Until now there had only been the reports from individual countries available. As other pollinators such as wild bees and hoverflies are also in decline, this could be a potential danger for pollinator services, on which many arable crops depend, according to what an international team of scientists have written in a special edition of the Journal of Apicultural Research.
In their investigation the researchers analysed data that was available from national beekeeper magazines and national reports, in order to calculate the total number of bee colonies and beekeepers. In this way the number of bee colonies between 1965 and 1985 could be reconstructed for 14 European countries and for 18 European countries between 1985 and 2005. The compilation provides us with a preliminary overview of the situation in Europe. It is not complete however, since for example France, Spain and some Eastern European EU countries are missing from it, as no suitable data could be procured for them. While in Europe and the USA the number of bee colonies has declined, the number on a worldwide scale is thought to have increased by approximately 45 percent over the last 50 years according to a 2009 report from the Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations (FAO). Unfortunately however this finding is of little use to the agrarian economy in Europe and the USA, for although honey can be imported as a product of the bees, this is not the case for the service provided by the bees -- namely pollination.

According to the analysis, the number of bee colonies has already been on the decline in Central and Western Europe since 1965.
Since 1985 this trend has also become apparent in countries such as the Czech Republic, Norway, the Slovak Republic and Sweden. By comparison, in the South of Europe (Greece, Italy and Portugal) the number of bee colonies increased between 1965 and 2005. In contrast however, the number of beekeepers decreased in all of the countries that were investigated.

Scientists assume the cause for this to be the social and economic changes over recent decades. Rising incomes of the rural population made other sugar-based products affordable, the replacement of jobs by machines in agriculture speeded up the rural exodus to urban regions and thus beekeeping as a hobby lost its attractiveness. "The price of treating bee diseases has increased to the extent that the cost of treatments may equal or exceed the income from a colony for an entire year, thus making it uneconomic to keep bees on a small scale," explains Dr. Simon G. Potts of the University of Reading in England. "Moreover, the effort for treating disease, in particular V. destructor, has probably also reduced the attractiveness of beekeeping as a hobby."
Through the investigation, the mystery of bee losses has by no means been solved, emphasize the scientists, who were however able to add another piece to the puzzle. Furthermore, the data would have to be interpreted very carefully because of the very different evaluation methods in individual countries. "With the limited evidence available it is neither possible to identify the actual driver of honey bee losses in Europe nor to give a complete answer on the trends for colonies and beekeepers. This obviously creates an urgent demand for a standardization of evaluation methods, especially on colony numbers. Such harmonized reliable methods will be the obvious backbone for any research to understand and mitigate honey bee colony losses," adds Dr. Josef Settele from the Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research (UFZ).

The loss of pollinators such as bees, bumble bees and butterflies is one of the four pillars of the EU project ALARM. ALARM stands for "Assessing Large scale environmental Risks for biodiversity with tested Methods" and was the largest research project of the European Union in the field of biodiversity.

Cell Phone Radiation Cuts Alzheimer's... in Mice

Surprising Finding May Not Apply to Humans, Researchers Warn


Inveterate cell-phone addicts may feel that the devices help them to work smarter, and -- surprisingly -- they may be right.

Scandinavian study gives reassurance to cell phone users. If they're mice, that is.
In mice prone to an animal form of Alzheimer's disease, long-term exposure to electromagnetic radiation typical of cell phones slowed and reversed the course of the illness, according to Gary Arendash of the University of South Florida in Tampa and colleagues.
A similar exposure in normal mice -- for two hours a day over seven to nine months -- improved their cognitive abilities compared with controls, Arendash and colleagues said in the January issue of the Journal of Alzheimer's Disease, which is the research journal of the Alzheimer's Association.

The findings provide "striking evidence for both protective and disease-reversing effects" of long-term exposure to radiation at cell phone levels, Arendash and colleagues said.

"You just have to remember where you are in the mainstream -- right up at the head of it," said Bill Thies, chief medical and science officer of the Alzheimer's Association.

Thies told MedPage Today that the research needs to be repeated and confirmed, and various aspects of it need more study, before it's ready for prime time.

"This is no call for anyone to self-medicate," Thies said.
Other reactions to the study ranged from "interesting" to "nonsense."
Neurologist Dr. Alan Lerner of Case Western Reserve University and University Hospitals Case Medical Center in Cleveland, Ohio, said in an email the researchers took an "an innovative approach to modulating Alzheimer's disease models in mice."
But he said it's too early to say whether the finding have any relevance to humans.
Dr. Roger Brumback of Creighton University in Omaha, Neb. cautioned that even science published in reputable journals can turn out to be wrong, adding "extreme caution is necessary until this outcome has been confirmed independently in other laboratories."

New Primitive Dinosaur Used Claws to Hunt Termites

Sometime in 2004, the Xinjiang Autonomous Region in China provided experts with the fossilized remains of a dinosaur that could not be cataloged. At that time, experts who had seen it had proposed that the creature was part of a new species, and their predictions eventually turned out to be true. The animal was named Haplocheirus sollers (“simple, skillful hand”), and its major traits were subject to rigorous analysis. As this was done, experts learned a great deal about this small lizard.

For one, its body was covered in feathers, but its teeth were long and serrated. According to the investigators, it may be that the animals also used their claws to basically hunt termites out of their nests, which would make it one of the first animals ever to do so. The fossil, which endured for more than 160 million years, is believed to have belonged to an individual that was at least 7 feet long (2 meters) and weighed roughly 33 pounds (15 kg). The team investigating these bones also concluded that the creature was a member of the peculiar-looking, feathered dinosaur group Alvarezsauridae.

George Washington University investigator Jonah Choiniere, who was a researcher on the new study, says that the earliest proof that Alvarezsauridae existed came from fossils that were “only” 85 million years old. One of the defining traits for these animals was their short, stubby arms, and also the fact that they only had a single large claw on their hands, flanked by several that were considerably smaller “Haplocheirus is a transitional fossil, because it shows an early evolutionary step in how the bizarre hands of later alvarezsaurs evolved from earlier predatory dinosaurs,” Choiniere explains, quoted by LiveScience.

It is additionally believed that these animals were proficient termite eaters. One of the things that lead scientists to believe that is the shape and size of the animals' teeth, which seem very similar to those of modern anteaters. “When the alvarezsauroids were initially discovered only about 15 years ago the prevailing hypothesis was that they were birds – a lineage within birds that had lost flight ability. And so what Haplocheirus shows is really that alvarezsauroids are not birds, but it pushes them further down the evolutionary tree,” the expert concludes.

How To Catch a Rodent With a Paper Towel Roll

Tobacco Plant Thwarts Caterpillar Onslaught by Opening Flowers in the Morning

(Jan. 25, 2010) — Butterflies and moths are welcome visitors to many plant species. Plants attract insect pollinators with the colors, forms, nectars and scents of their flowers to ensure fertilization and reproduction. However, female moths are also threatening to the plant: Once attracted by the flower's scent, they lay their eggs on the green leaves, and shortly voracious young caterpillars hatch. Scientists from the Max Planck Institute for Chemical Ecology have now discovered how tobacco plants successfully solve this dilemma.

Wild tobacco (Nicotiana attenuata), native in North America, is flowering during the nighttime and attracts night-active moths as pollinators by emitting the attractant benzyl acetone. However, as soon as female moths start laying their eggs on the plant and the young caterpillars become a serious danger, the plant postpones the opening time of the flowers by 12 hours to dawn and additionally stops producing benzyl acetone. Moths stay away and hummingbirds take over pollination. (Credit: Danny Kessler, Max Planck Institute for Chemical Ecology, Jena, Germany)


The researchers found that herbivory changed the opening time of the flower buds from dusk to dawn. In addition the emission of flower scents was dramatically reduced. This change in flower timing was elicited by specific molecules in the oral secretions of the larvae, and required the jasmonate signaling cascade, which is known to elicit a host of other defense responses in plants. Instead of night-active moths, these morning-opening flowers attract day-active hummingbirds which are also able to transfer pollen -- without threatening the plant's life.

Outbreak of tomato hornworms

During field experiments performed by PhD students of the Department of Molecular Ecology headed by Prof. Ian T. Baldwin in the Great Basin Desert of Utah (USA) in summer 2007, a massive outbreak of tomato hornworms (Manduca quinquemaculata) occurred. Almost every tobacco plant of the native species Nicotiana attenuata on the field site was attacked by these herbivores which prefer plants of the nightshade family. Danny Kessler intensively studied the infested plants and noticed that these plants had many flowers that opened after sunrise -- although tobacco is typically a night-flowering plant and usually opens its flower buds after sunset. This finding resulted in experiments conducted in the following two years that showed that the flowering time postponed by 12 hours was directly related to herbivory.

Pollination wanted, but no oviposition

Ecologists had already noticed that female moths attracted for pollination laid their eggs, and shortly leaf-eating larvae hatched to feed on the same plant. The scientists considered whether plants would actually submit without reserve to this life-threatening disadvantage -- just for pollination. They intensively studied the remarkable morning-opening flowers (MoF) which were only produced by plants that had been attacked by insect larvae and compared them to the usually occurring night-opening flowers (NoF). The first experiment already revealed an astounding result: MoF did not emit the attractant benzyl acetone anymore (see also Kessler et al., Science 321, 2008) and also the sugar concentration in the floral nectar was considerably reduced. Furthermore, it was striking that the petals of MoF only opened to a third of the size of NoF. All in all, the MoF were rendered literally unnoticeable by the moths -- however, they may become interesting for different pollinators living nearby the field station: hummingbirds.

Hummingbirds visit the morning-opening flowers and serve as pollinators

To find out whether moths or birds successfully transferred pollen from flower to flower, the scientists determined the outcrossing rate of plants visited by moths or hummingbirds in field experiments. They removed the anthers from young flower buds to rule out self-pollination. Then an unattacked and an insect-attacked tobacco plant were covered with a mesh-covered wire cage until the morning of the next day to exclude night-active pollinators. A second pair of plants remained uncovered and thereby accessible to night-active pollinators. Before dawn the cages were exchanged, so that the plants that had been uncovered during the night were now covered and the plants that had been covered at night became accessible to pollinators during the day. In the evening all experimental plants were covered and the plants remained so until seed capsules were produced. Counting of the capsules revealed that a significant majority of capsules on plants that had not been attacked by caterpillars originated from flowers that were pollinated during the night between 8:00 p.m. and 6:00 a.m., whereas in caterpillar-infested plants successful pollination had occurred in majority during the day between 6:00 a.m. and 8:00 p.m., therefore by hummingbirds.

The scientists verified the assumption that actually hummingbirds visit the MoFs and drink their nectar by directly observing and counting out more than 1000 flowering wild tobacco plants. 18 humming bird visitations were intensively studied which showed hummingbirds visiting larvae-infested plants. As a matter of fact, more than 90% of the birds preferred the MoF compared to NoF, even if only a few MoF were on a plant. "It is likely that the hummingbirds can recognize the special shape of the partially open corollas of the MoF in the morning and associate these characteristics with the reliable quality and quantity of the nectar in these flowers," says Celia Diezel, co-author of the study.

Experiments using larval oral secretions and transgenic tobacco plants

In further experiments the scientists studied how attacked plants recognize herbivory and subsequently change the developmental program of the flowers to favor hummingbirds. Instead of infesting the plant by putting caterpillars on the leaves, the researchers mechanically wounded a leaf with a pattern wheel and applied oral secretions from hornworm larvae on the wounds. The plant reacted as after direct insect attack: After approximately 3 days more morning-opening flowers compared to non-induced plants were produced.

"Maybe the fatty acid amino acid conjugates present in the oral secretions of the larvae elicit this reaction. We already know that they switch on the plant's defense against herbivory, for instance by producing toxic substances to fend off the attacker," Danny Kessler, PhD student at the institute, explains. In an additional experiment he used genetically modified tobacco, in which the signaling pathway between the messenger molecule in the oral secretion and the defense reaction was interrupted; these plants were unable to produce jasmonate, a plant hormone initiating plant defense responses. In fact, the transgenic jasmonate-deficient plants used in the field experiment did not produce MoF after spit induction, but could if the plants were sprayed with jasmonate, which showed that the reprogramming of the flower production is actually related to the pathway that switches on defense mechanisms.

Why do plants risk attracting tomato hornworm moths as pollinators, although the insects' larvae feed on the plants? "We cannot answer this question from the perspective of one single plant, but, if at all, from an evolutionary and ecological background," says Ian Baldwin.

Wild tobacco populations grow on vast areas after fires, comparable to synchronized monocultures with thousands of widespread plants. Hummingbirds may not be the most reliable pollination service the plant species needs for outcrossing and reproduction. Using volatiles, the plants can attract moths from large distances, whereas hummingbirds are only available, if their nests are accidentally in the vicinity of the tobacco populations. Moreover, looking at the special mode of hummingbird pollination, it is more likely that flowers of one single plant are pollinated with pollen from the same plant than from flowers of different plants. This can decrease the genetic variability of the seeds produced. Moths may move more frequently among plants and this behavior may results in greater genetic variability for the seed produced from their pollination services. [JWK/AO]

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Mice and humans with same anxiety-related gene abnormality behave similarly

 (Jan. 19, 2010) — Studying animals in behavioral experiments has been a cornerstone of psychological research, but whether the observations are relevant for human behavior has been unclear. Weill Cornell Medical College researchers have identified an alteration to the DNA of a gene that imparts similar anxiety-related behavior in both humans and mice, demonstrating that laboratory animals can be accurately used to study these human behaviors.

The findings may help researchers develop new clinical strategies to treat humans with anxiety disorders, such as phobias and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).
Results from the study, funded by the National Institutes of Health, are published January 15 in the journal Science.

"We found that humans and mice who had the same human genetic alteration also had greater difficulty in extinguishing an anxious-like response to adverse stimuli," explains Dr. B.J. Casey, co-senior author of the study and professor of psychology in psychiatry from The Sackler Institute for Developmental Psychobiology at Weill Cornell Medical College.

The researchers observed common behavioral responses between humans and mice that possess an alteration in the brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) gene. The mice were genetically altered -- meaning that they had a human genetic variation inserted within their genome.
To make their comparison, the researchers paired a harmless stimulus with an aversive one, which elicits an anxious-like response, known as conditioned fear. Following fear learning, exposure to numerous presentations of the harmless stimulus alone, in the absence of the aversive stimulus, normally leads to subjects extinguishing this fear response. That is, a subject should eventually stop having an anxious response towards the harmless stimulus.
"But both the mice and humans found to have the alternation in the BDNF gene took significantly longer to 'get over' the innocuous stimuli and stop having a conditioned fear response," explains Dr. Fatima Soliman, lead author of the study, who is currently a Tri-Institutional MD-PhD student, and has completed her Ph.D. in the labs of Drs. B.J. Casey and Francis S. Lee.
In addition to the observational testing, the researchers also performed brain scans using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), on the human participants, to see if brain function differed between people with the abnormal BDNF gene and those with normal BDNF genes.
They found that a circuit in the brain involving the frontal cortex and amygdala -- responsible for learning about cues that signal safety and danger -- was altered in people with the abnormality, when compared with control participants who did not have the abnormality.

"Testing for this gene may one day help doctors make more informed decisions for treatment of anxiety disorders," explains Dr. Francis S. Lee, co-senior author of the study and associate professor of psychiatry and pharmacology at Weill Cornell Medical College.

Therapists use exposure therapy -- a type of behavior therapy in which the patient confronts a feared situation, object, thought, or memory -- to treat individuals who experience stress and anxiety due to certain situations. Sometimes, exposure therapy involves reliving a traumatic experience in a controlled, therapeutic environment and is based on principles of extinction learning. The goal is to reduce the distress, physical or emotional, felt in situations that trigger negative emotion. Exposure therapy is often used for the treatment of anxiety, phobias and PTSD.
"Exposure therapy may still work for patients with this gene abnormality, but a positive test for the BDNF genetic variant may let doctors know that exposure therapy may take longer, and that the use of newer drugs may be necessary to accelerate extinction learning," explains Dr. Soliman.
Co-authors of the study include Dr. Charles Glatt, Dr. Kevin Bath, Dr. Liat Levita, Rebecca Jones, Siobhan Pattwell, Dr. Deqiang Jing, Dr. Nim Tottenham, Dr. Dima Amso, Dr. Leah Somerville, Dr. Henning Voss, Dr. Douglas Ballon, Dr. Conor Liston, Theresa Teslovich and Tracey Van Kempen, all from Weill Cornell; and Dr. Gary Glover, from Stanford University, Stanford, Calif.

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Why Mice Develop 'Knots' While Exploring a New Environment

(Jan. 18, 2010) — During exploration of a new environment, mice establish "knots" -- preferred places visited sporadically and marked by the performance of twists and turns, according to a new study by Israel and Canada-based researchers. The research provides evidence that the formation of these places is increased by stress, and suggests that the tortuous movements improve the interpretation of the visual scene, enhance the memory of the place and provide the mouse with multiple views that turn the established places into navigational landmarks.

Details are published January 15 in the open-access journal PLoS Computational Biology.
The notion of "a place" and an "itinerary" is taken for granted in everyday life but how these abstract ideas are created is a subject of much discussion and research. Using advanced computational tools the authors show how a particular type of place (knot) is formed and then used by mice. The knots, and other preferred places discovered earlier, contribute to our understanding of how the animals map the environment, and what they try to accomplish.
In an empty arena devoid of proximal cues, the rich perceptual inputs generated by the twisting and turning could improve the mouse's view of the environment and more generally enhance or even embody for the mouse the memory and significance of this place by tagging it with a place-specific perceptual signature, say the authors.
Exploration is a central component of human and animal behavior that has been studied in rodents for almost a century. It is presently one of the main models for studying the interface between behavior, genetics, drugs, and the brain. Until recently, rodents' exploration of an open field has been considered to be largely random. Lately, this behavior is being gradually deciphered, revealing reference places established and used by the animals for navigation.
Portrayal of how behavior is structured within and around knots in normal animals can later be used to study how this behavior is affected by pharmacological and genetic manipulations.

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Bees Chase Tenant From Apartment, Pest Company Finds Hives In Bedroom Wall, Tenant Says

 January 12, 2010 MESA -- A bee invasion at one Valley apartment complex got so bad, it forced a Mesa tenant to move out.
Yvonne Gaines said her bee problem started on the outside but then those pesky pests made their way in.

"There was like five or six at a time, every time," Gaines said. "They were coming through the vent and coming through the ceiling fan."

Gaines said the noise was unbearable.

"They were fighting to get in from out of the wall," Gaines said.

Gaines said she started complaining almost daily to management. She said when those complaints failed to get results, she took matters into her own hands.

"We bought a fly swatter," she said. "And we started swatting."

Yvonne and her boyfriend trapped some of the bees in a bag. Gaines said management finally called in a pest control service.
After drilling a few holes in her wall and spraying, Gaines said she got even worse news.
"They told us there had to be one or two hives within the wall of our bedroom, which could have been the span of the whole bedroom wall," Gaines said.
Gaines said that was the last straw. She moved out.
Gaines said she wants the apartment complex to pay for the rent she paid during the course of the infestation.
"I don't think we were living in a safe environment," Gaines said.
Gaines said she is considering filing a lawsuit against the complex.

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