Bumble bee research featured by the Columbus Dispatch

Scott and Mike's research has been featured by the Columbus Dispatch! Check out the link below:

LINK: Researchers use radio tags to unlock bumblebee's secrets

Misunderstood spider...

Here at the ALE lab we are very interested in spiders! They are generalist predators which means: they eat many different things, especially agricultural and house hold pests! Since they hunt a variety of pests we consider them to be important biological control agents, meaning they eat pests for us so we don't have have to use as many insecticides.

Spiders may be among the most misunderstood of arthropods. Most people have heard about the brown recluse to be dangerous, however much of that information is misleading. For starters...the range of the brown recluse just barely reaches the South-western tip of Ohio, so Ohioans should not fear!

Wikipedia

Wired.com recently published an article regarding the poor misunderstood brown recluse..check it out!

LINK: Why You Need Not Fear the Poor, Misunderstood Brown Recluse Spider

Also...let's not forget, jumping spiders are just adorable.

Wooster Hops Production Field Day

Our Hops Production Field Day was featured by Farm and Dairy: Hops Article

Earlier this month we had a successful field day with about 80 participants! The excitement surrounding hop production in Ohio is growing and our job is to help growers obtain the knowledge needed to produce hops.

Controlling pests with flowers

Many researchers, including us (and more specifically: Ben), have been studying ways to control pests by attracting natural enemies to crops. Ben has tested floral strips which he planted next to his pumpkin plots, and one of the flowers he tested was sweet alyssum. While Ben has been busy writing his thesis...a study came out of Washington State University that tested the effect of sweet alyssum placed next to orchards. They found a significant decrease in the number of aphids in plots with the flowers compared to plots without flowers. For more info check out the article: www.sciencedaily.com: Controlling aphids with flowers

Ben will be presenting his results soon, and we are excited to see if he had similar results!

Watch a Caterpillar Morph Into a Butterfly in 3-D

This is very cool!

wiredscience: butterfly metamorphosis in 3D

Google celebrates birthday of naturalist Maria Sibylla Merian

Today the Google Doodle is celebrating the 366th birthday of Maria Sibylla Merian, a naturalist and artist who studied insects and plants. Some of her entomological artwork is below:

(more at the source: Wikipedia)

Souces:
Google.com
Article: Huff Post

Insects in the news

Insects made the front page of the Huffington Post today with a catchy title. Research is ongoing regarding the cause of colony collapse disorder (CCD), and there is strong evidence that neonicotinoids have a detrimental effect on honey bees. These chemicals are used extensively on crops as pesticides. Now that the EPA is being sued by an environmental group in addition to beekeepers, entomologists are likely to be questioned during on the stand during the trial. We'll be on the lookout for more info!

Source: Huff Post Article
Article describing the effect of Neonicotinoids on honey bees: TheGuardian

Insect in the spotlight: Agenioideus nigricornis

Australians have a tiny wasp to thank for keeping the population of a dangerous spider in check. The redback spider hunting wasp (Agenioideus nigricornis) attacks...wait for it...redback spiders. Bites by redback spiders, which are closely related to black widows, cause severe pain, sweating, weakness, vomiting, and in rare cases can result in death.

A redback spider-hunting wasp dragging its paralyzed prey back to its nest. Photo by Florian and Peter Irwin.

The wasp, described in 1775, had only been known by it's scientific name until just recently when a 9 year old boy (budding entomologist perhaps??) observed a wasp dragging a redback spider to it's nest. The boy's father photographed the event, collected the organisms and sent them off to be analysed. The wasps sting and paralyze their prey then drag the spider back to it's nest where it lays an egg on the live spider. The egg soon hatches and the larvae feeds on the spider (watch Alien if you would like another example of this behavior with other species) This newly discovered behavior led to the common name of the wasp, and has also been very interesting to entomologists. The redback spiders have spread from Australia to Japan and New Zealand, and perhaps these wasps could be introduced to control the populations of the spiders in those areas. Though I am sure there is MUCH research to be done before those options can be considered.

Citations:
huffingtonpost.com
ouramazingplanet.com

Insects in the News

Photo provided by the Idaho State department of Ag.

Another invasive insect has been detected in the United States recently. The elm seed bug has been found in southwestern Idaho and although it is not a threat to trees, it often enters buildings in large numbers. This new invasive insect adds to the growing list of insects which find their way into our homes. Other insects that are known to get into homes and cause a nuisance are the multicolored Asian lady beetle and the brown marmorated stink bug. The elm seed bug gets into homes during the summer to escape the heat and stays there throughout the winter. These insects are not a health risk, but they can have an unpleasant odor, and also can enter homes by the hundreds causing serious distress for homeowners. The native range of the elm seed bug is southern Europe and the mechanism of their arrival is still unknown.

While there have been no reports of this insect in Ohio, the Department of Agriculture has recived calls from people claiming to see the bug in South Carolina, West Virginia, Illinois, New Jersey, Oklahoma, Montana, Nevada, Connecticut, California, Michigan, Washington, and Oregon.

Be on the look out for these bugs, and keep in mind that there is another home invader that looks similar, the boxelder bug. (Fact sheet with info about boxelder bugs)

Sources: Washington Post article, ABC News article

Smallest known fly is an ant killer

The smallest known fly species has recently been identified by Brian Brown of the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County. The fly,  Euryplatea nanaknihali (Diptera: Phoridae), was discovered in Thailand, and is a member of the genus: Euryplatea, which are known to be phorid flies.

Phoridae is a family of small flies that can be identified by their humpback and many members are parasites of flies and bees. It is likely that the behavior of E. nanaknihali may be similar to that of other phorid flies which lay eggs in the body of an ant. The larva migrates to the ant's head and feeds on the muscles used to open and close the mouthparts, eventually eating the brain which causes the ant to wander for up to two weeks. The head falls off when the larva dissolve the membrane that keeps the head attached off. The larva then remain in the head where it pupates and hatches into an adult after two weeks.

The picture below shows E. nanaknihali on the right, and a size comparison with a house fly (Musca domestica) on the left.

Credit: (c) Inna-Marie Strazhnik

Rough day to be a ant.

Sources:
Citation:
Brown B.V. (2012). Small Size No Protection for Acrobat Ants: World's Smallest Fly Is a Parasitic Phorid (Diptera: Phoridae). Annals of the Entomological Society of America, 105, 550-554.

Popular media article:
Live Science Article

Arthropods in the news: Ticks

As you probably all ready know...Lyme disease is a serious bacterial disease transmitted by deer ticks (also known as black legged ticks): Ixodes scapularis, Pictured below:

Photo credit: Jae Nanthranoha (Bugguide.net)

Ticks are probably my least favorite arthropod, they can sit on a blade of grass for months just waiting for a mammal to walk past, on which they attach and take a blood meal, they are sneaky, and spread multiple diseases. Recently the incidences of Lyme disease have been increasing and scientists have been testing hypotheses hoping to find the mechanism for the spread. It was first hypothesized that the increase in deer populations was causing cases of Lyme disease, but that idea was refuted when it was discovered that the increases were not correlated with eachother. However, as reported in the link posted below, the researchers found that there was a correlation between increasing Lyme disease cases and the decline of the red fox.

MSNBC: Missing foxes fuel spread of Lyme disease

Looking at data from five states, it was discovered that the spread of Lyme disease correlated with the loss of red foxes, while deer populations were remaining steady. The scientists propose that the reason for this may be the increase in Coyote populations which prey on the foxes. The lack of foxes increases the amount of small mammals such as mice which also act of vectors for Lyme disease.

So...more coyotes --> less foxes --> more small mammals --> more Lyme disease. Got it?

Few people would have been able to predict that an increase in Coyote populations would lead to a spread of Lyme disease. However it is well known that alterations in populations of organisms can have unexpected consequences on food webs and within the ecosystem.