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UrduMillipedes represent some of the earliest known terrestrial animals and are highly understudied, but two West Virginia University researchers are working to shine a light on these important invertebrates. Several years ago, Matt Kasson and Angie Macias set out to…
Tag: Entomology
Delicious and disease-free: scientists attempting new citrus varieties
$4.67 million helps put new fruits to the test
Brain gene expression patterns predict behavior of individual honey bees
CHAMPAIGN, Ill. — An unusual study that involved bar coding and tracking the behavior of thousands of individual honey bees in six queenless bee hives and analyzing gene expression in their brains offers new insights into how gene regulation contributes…
Synergy between biotech and classical control tactics rid US of invasive pest
Maricopa, Arizona, December 21, 2020–Genetically engineered cotton and classical pest control tactics combined to rid the United States and Northern Mexico of a devastating pest, according to a new study by Agricultural Research Service (ARS) and University of Arizona (UofA)…
Biotech cotton key to eliminating devastating pest from US and Mexico
For much of the past century, the invasive pink bollworm wreaked havoc in the southwestern United States and northern Mexico — inflicting tens of millions of dollars in damage annually to cotton on both sides of the border. A multifaceted…
Variety: Spice of life for bumble bees
Research team led by Göttingen University analyses the foraging behavior of bees using pollen DNA
Silkworm’s brain determines diapause by thermal information
Diapause is a seasonal adaptation strategy of insects and animals where biological functions are put on hold, such as insect eggs that remain dormant until conditions are more favorable to hatch. This is not a passive response of dormancy to…
Researchers make ‘high vis vests’ to help monitor bee behaviour
A team of researchers from the University of Sheffield and The Bumblebee Conservation Trust have been trialling new, low-cost ways to monitor bee species in the UK, by dressing bees in high visibility retroreflective vests. This novel research will be…
Plants that power the food web
University of Delaware researchers have thrown a spotlight on the critical plants needed to sustain food webs across the United States, illuminating a plan for how to restore ecosystems anywhere in the country.
Creating a ground plan for stonefly evolution
Researchers led by the University of Tsukuba find that differences in egg structure among stonefly species can provide insight into the evolutionary history of the order
West Nile virus infection risk is higher in less affluent neighborhoods in Baltimore, MD
Study finds abundance of infected mosquitos varies with neighborhood income
A human gene placed in fruit flies reveals details about a human developmental disorder
Meier-Gorlin syndrome is a rare genetic developmental disorder that causes dwarfism, small ears, a small brain, missing patella and other skeletal abnormalities
Powerhouse plants that bolster the food web
Researchers identify key native plants that stabilize feeding relationships essential for our planet’s health
$6.3 million will help UC Riverside save America’s avocado orchards
Incurable fungus, root rot and salinity threaten fruit production
Neuropeptide discoveries could someday help defeat the dreaded cockroach
Cockroaches are notorious for their abilities to survive and reproduce, much to humanity’s chagrin. In addition to scurrying around at night, feeding on human and pet food, and generating an offensive odor, the pests can transmit pathogens and cause allergic…
Academy scientists describe 213 species in 2020
Despite challenges posed by the pandemic, researchers collaborated to describe new-to-science species from five continents and three oceans
Honey bees use animal feces to deter deadly giant hornet attacks
Study finds the first documented case of honey bees using tools and collecting non-plant materials
Honey bees fend off giant hornets with animal dung, U of G researchers discover
Honeybees spread animal dung on the entrance of their hives to effectively ward off giant hornets
Risk of vine-to-vine spread of Xylella fastidiosa is greatest in July and August
The bacterial plant pathogen Xylella fastidiosa is a worldwide threat to perennial tree and vine crops and has been linked to Pierce’s disease of grapevine in California, olive quick decline in Italy, and citrus variegated chlorosis in South America. Scientists…
Good News for the Honey Bee According to 150-Year-Old Museum Specimens
The past several decades have been hard on Apis mellifera, the Western honey bee. Originally native to Europe, Africa, and the Middle East, Western honey bees have spread worldwide thanks to the nutritional and medicinal value of their honey, pollen,…
After 100 years, Cornell University plant pathologists revisit fire blight hypothesis
Historically credited as being the first bacterium ever characterized as a plant pathogen, fire blight is a bacterial disease that leads to significant losses of pear and apple. The role of insects in the spread of this disease has been…
University of Guam works to stop ironwood tree decline
With U.S. Department of Agriculture grants totaling almost $370,000, researchers from the University of Guam and other institutions are in the process of analyzing termites to assess their role in infecting what is now more than 20 percent of Guam’s…
Grant enables first nationwide effort to save native bees
National monitoring network will create bee research alliance
Greater mosquito susceptibility to Zika virus fueled the epidemic
The Zika virus has spread around the world over the last decade, causing millions of infections, some of which have been associated with congenital abnormalities and neurological disorders. Scientists from the CNRS, the Institut Pasteur, and the IRD[1] turned their…
Researchers create first map of bee species around the globe
There are over 20,000 species of bee, but accurate data about how these species are spread across the globe are sparse. However, researchers reporting in the journal Current Biology on November 19 have created a map of bee diversity by…
The very hungry, angry caterpillars
In the absence of milkweed–their favorite food–monarch butterfly caterpillars (Danaus plexippus) go from peaceful feeders to aggressive fighters. Researchers reporting in the journal iScience on November 19 observed that caterpillars with less access to food were more likely to lunge…
Very hungry and angry, caterpillars head-butt to get what they want
FAU study shows how monarch butterfly caterpillars go from peaceful feeders to aggressive fighters in their quest for milkweed
Vertebrate biodiversity- a glimmer of hope
Extreme losses in a few populations drive apparent global vertebrate decline
X-ray imaging of a beetle’s world in ancient earthenware
Visualization of insect impressions in 3600-year-old pottery from Kyushu, Japan
Solitary bees are born with a functional internal clock – unlike honeybees
Developmental lag in the circadian clock may facilitate sociality
Environmental factors affect the distribution of Iberian spiders
Climate, geography and endemism of Iberian spiders
First global soil biodiversity assessment, part II
Some of the more than 100 scientists who contributed to the UN-FAO Report, “State of Knowledge of Soil Biodiversity: Status, Challenges, and Potentialities” will discuss the importance of including science in policymaking. The scientists will also talk about the importance…
Researchers use genomics to reconstitute yellow fever outbreak in São Paulo
Three waves of the disease swept the state between 2016 and 2018. An international group of researchers described how the virus spread in a study based on the sequencing of 51 viral isolates extracted from mosquitoes and monkeys.
“Helper” ambrosia beetles share reproduction with their mother
Fungus-growing Xyleborus affinis beetles have independently evolved a similar social structure to many casteless wasps and bees
Death from below: the first video of a parasitic wasp attacking caterpillar underwater
A very few species of parasitoid wasps can be considered aquatic. Less than 0.1% of the species we know today have been found to enter the water, while searching for potential hosts or living as endoparasitoids inside of aquatic hosts…
A 520-million-year-old five-eyed fossil reveals arthropod origin
The arthropods have been among the most successful animals on Earth since the Cambrian Period, about 520 million years ago. They are the most familiar and ubiquitous, and constitute nearly 80 percent of all animal species today, far more than…
Chikungunya may affect central nervous system as well as joints and lungs
Investigation conducted by international group of researchers showed that chikungunya virus can cause neurological infections; risk of death in subacute phase is higher for patients with diabetes and significant for young adults
Beetles cooperate in brood care
They belong to the bark beetle family, and they are the only animals in nature, along with leaf-cutter ants and some termites, that practice agriculture: ambrosia beetles. These insects, which are about two millimetres in size, carry fungal spores into…
Ants swallow their own acid to protect themselves from germs
Ants use their own acid to disinfect themselves and their stomachs. A team from Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg (MLU) and the University of Bayreuth has found that formic acid kills harmful bacteria in the animal’s food, thereby reducing the risk…
Join us online: Insect science goes virtual at Entomology 2020, November 11-25
Scores of presentations on the latest in insect science, all at your fingertips at the ESA Virtual Annual Meeting
Leaf-cutter bees as plastic recyclers? Not a good idea, say scientists
In observational paper, team of scientists report evidence of bees in the genus Megachile using plastic in nest construction
Printing plastic webs to protect the cellphone screens of the future
A spider web-inspired solution made possible using 3D printing
Two centuries of Monarch butterflies show evolution of wing length
North America’s beloved Monarch butterflies are known for their annual, multi-generation migrations in which individual insects can fly for thousands of miles. But Monarchs have also settled in some locations where their favorite food plants grow year round, so they…
Researchers map genomes of agricultural monsters
Hungry screwworms eat livestock alive while thrips transmit viruses
Vampire bats social distance when they get sick
A new paper in Behavioral Ecology , published by Oxford University Press, finds that wild vampire bats that are sick spend less time near others from their community, which slows how quickly a disease will spread. The research team had…
Butterfly color diversity due to female preferences
Butterflies have long captured our attention due to their amazing color diversity. But why are they so colorful? A new publication led by researchers from Sweden and Germany suggests that female influence butterfly color diversity by mating with colorful males.…
Shifts in flowering phases of plants due to reduced insect density
Research group of Jena University and iDiv uses novel research method to study effect of insect decline on plant biodiversity
Discovery adds new species to Rice lab’s ghoulish insect menagerie
Rice, UNAM team’s four new wasp species are the ‘tip of the iceberg’
Research provides a new understanding of how a model insect species sees color
Through an effort to characterize the color receptors in the eyes of the fruit fly Drosophila melanogaster , University of Minnesota researchers discovered the spectrum of light it can see deviates significantly from what was previously recorded. “The fruit fly…
The Darwinian diet: You are what you eat
Lessons in evolution from agricultural ants in Panama