The taxonomy of Homoreptilia sapiens

Tags

biology, cladogram, dinosaurs, doctor who, fun facts, Geek, homo reptilia, nerd, taxonomy

A while back, I posted on the biological and taxonomic inaccuracies of Homo reptilia (a species in the Doctor Who series).  Yesterday, I got this comment on the post:

“I thought it sounded weird, but it had been a long time since my High School taxonomy. Out of curiosity, have you thought of what a cladogram would look like for bipedal, sentient reptiles would look like? Use whatever hypothetical groups you would need to “

And as I started to reply…

“Aha…a challenge!  Well, it is not so difficult to think of bipedal reptiles, but sentience is difficult.  For that, we would want warm-blooded animals.  Some research suggests that some of the dinosaurs were warm-blooded, so let’s go back to Dinosauria and imagine that there is an extant group to represent this clade that is warm-blooded and bipedal….OH WAIT, there is!  Birds!  So, depending on how you define sentience…..oh bother, now I’ve gone and made a cladogram…”

And so now that I’ve gone and nerded out on the whole issue, here’s a cladogram of what I am calling “Homoreptilia sapiens”, which makes a whole lot more taxonomic sense.  Note that this wasn’t done rigorously, but it makes a few points, such as we would expect Homoreptilia sapiens to be as distant from iguanas as from humans, and much more closely related to a sparrow than a Velociraptor (or philosoraptor, for that matter).

Where else can you get this kind of quality science???!!!

PS HAPPY PI DAY!

Out of Space, and Natural History, by EB White

Tags

EB White, GPS, natural history, satellites, space, space junk, writing

NATURAL HISTORY

The spider, dropping down from twig,
Unfolds a plan of her devising,
A thin premeditated rig
To use in rising.

And all that journey down through space,
In cool descent and loyal hearted,
She spins a ladder to the place
From where she started.

Thus I, gone forth as spiders do
In spider’s web a truth discerning,
Attach one silken thread to you
For my returning.

- E.B. White

My father is an astrophysicist and, despite his disappointment in my obsession with difficult-to-quantify things, I adore being able to chat with him about astronomical phenomena.  He was the first person I called to grill about the asteroid meteor meteorite that struck Russia recently, and I chatted with him on the phone about the solar eclipse last year.

He is smart and interesting to talk to.  Also, dads are always right, you know?

Anyway, I am always learning new things from him, and recently he was discussing how little space there is in space.  Or at least, in the space that humans are directly invested in, where the satellites roam and particularly in geosynchronous orbit.

He related a tale to me about how they were recently trying to move a satellite out of the path of debris that could potentially damage it, but for every trajectory they calculated, there was another satellite in the way.  In the end, they just had to let the debris hit it (fortunately, it was not damaged).

Space debris mapped by NASA models, image courtesy of Wikipedia.org.

And it is not just functioning satellites taking up space, it is also a lot of junk that got left up there, back when people were not required to have a plan to get it back down.  This problem was highlighted a few days ago when Chinese space junk hit a Russian satellite.

A NASA image of the oldest piece of space junk…Vanguard, which was sent up in 1958 and is expected to remain in orbit for another 240 years.  Image courtesy of Wikipedia.org

It is difficult to realize how much we are able to change our world, but the amount of space junk up there really brings it to light!  We walk around on the surface of the planet, and we use satellites all the time.  For example, almost everyone seems to have a GPS device in their car for finding their way around these days.  We depend on GPS for agriculture, for research, and even for landing planes.

Precision agriculture using GPS…forgive me I do not remember where I found this!

And what is harder to grasp is just how much infrastructure is required to support these modern day miracles.  i.e.  A lot of infrastructure.

Somewhat tangentially, I am also running out of space on my blog!  I am currently at 99% of my capacity.  What happens when you hit 100%?  Does the whole blog vanish?  With a bang?!  If I’m not here tomorrow, you know why, but sometimes I can fit a couple of posts into a percentage point.

(Is that like angels dancing on the head of a pin?)

I know I’m weird, forgive me.

Tell me your secrets, Witch Hazel

Tags

ecology, flowers, hamamelis virginiana, natural history, nature, plants, pollination, witch hazel

Yesterday, I posted about one of the few plants that I know of that flowers before the vernal equinox.  But I wanted to dedicate today’s post to the only plant I know of that is native to northeastern North America and flowers in the middle of winter.

This is Witch Hazel (Hamamelis virginiana):

Witch Hazel leaves in fall.

Witch Hazel is fascinating for a number of reasons.  It produces an astringent which has cytotoxic properties active against certain cancers, and used for acne.  It was also used to make divining rods (supposedly to find water), but there’s no scientific support for that.

Not *that* Witch Hazel.  This is an excerpt from my Tree Book, which you can find in the “Field Guides” tab.

It has these crazy flowers with long yellow ribbons, and tiny red sepals, that appear in the middle of winter…technically, they flower from September through November, but in urban areas, I’ve seen flowers on them in February during a snow storm.

Flowers in December, with last year’s fruit, image courtesy of the Bedford Audubon Society

The name means “together fruit”, which is descriptive of the flowers being present at the same time as the fruit of the previous year.  Indeed, although the flowers are pollinated in the fall, fertilization does not occur until months after.  Here’s a quote from Shoemaker (On the Development of Hamamelis virginiana, 1905): “Fertilization takes place in May, five to seven months after pollination.”

But there is little else flowering when Witch Hazel is flowering, and that makes it a mystery.  For example, this species depends on insect vectors for pollination, but there are not many insects flying around in November!  Its habit of flowering when through hard frosts and even snow seems odd, and suggests that the benefits of high fidelity visitation outweigh the costs of low frequency visitation.

Naturally, my question was “What pollinates the Witch Hazel flowers?”  The answer seems to be mainly flies, and mainly a tiny fungus gnat (Anderson & Hill 2002):  “A species of dark-winged fungus gnat in the genus Bradysia constituted 42% of all flies collected.“

In other words, because Witch Hazel is the only thing flowering, it is also pretty much the only pollen that insect vectors can be carrying, so every pollen transfer is sure to be the right species.  There is some evidence that this lack of “pollen interference” could be advantageous.

The real clue comes from comparing the flowering of this species with its closely related cousins.  Here’s an explanation from Shoemaker (1905): “In comparing Hamamelis virginiana with its relatives, it seems certain that it was once a spring-flowering plant, whose blossoming has worked backward through the winter.”

What a fascinating plant!

My friend admiring Witch Hazel.

Snow drops

Tags

amaryllis, beauty, flowers, galanthus, nature, photography, snowdrops, spring

As one of the few plants that blossoms before the vernal equinox, I give the snow drops props for bravery!  I was super excited to spot some this morning, a sure sign that spring is on the way.  As always, I am overeager for the onset of spring.

Aren’t they beautiful?

Of the genus Galanthus and native to Europe

In the Amaryllis family

Brave and humble little snow drops!

In which I do a little modeling…

Tags

complexity, ecology, experiments, field biology, modeling, models, research, science

Ha!  Here’s a thing I bet you didn’t know about me!  I do a little modeling now and then.

Jewelry modeling!  (Just kidding)

Okay, yes that is a joke, but it is also completely true, and it just happens to be a theoretical ecologist’s favourite joke.  My adviser, who is almost entirely theoretical, sometimes tells a story about one of her ex-boyfriends.  She introduced herself as a modeler without thinking how he might interpret it (not being an academic), and he told others she was a model for the duration of their (albeit short-lived) relationship.  She never told him the truth (why bother?).

My good friend, also a theoretician, has a sister who really is an actress, and she brags that both she and her sister “do a little modeling.”

I am not a theoretical ecologist by trade (I am mostly empirical, meaning I stand out in my field a lot), but I occasionally dabble in the world of ecological modeling.  And here’s why.

What is a model? you may ask.  You started reading this post thinking about Tyra Banks, but I’m gonna change your mind (or try to).  A model is something used to simplify and represent a more complex system.  The example my adviser uses for her class (which I have helped to teach) is a small stuffed dog.  The toy is a model of a real dog.

A model of a dog, courtesy of Orlando Sentinel

How could the toy be more realistic?  Well, real dogs bark, so the toy would be more realistic if it could also bark.  My adviser then pushes a button on the back of the toy and it barks mechanically.  Aha!  Instantly a more realistic model!

Because the real world is an incredibly complex place, many ecologists build simpler models to help understand it.  The key word is “simpler”; these models are not simple.  They can involve series of interrelated differential equations

Differential equations, from upc.edu

Or the network models I mentioned in an earlier post.

A model of cod fisheries

Or many, many other types of models.  In fact, ecologists are always developing new models, trying to garner a sense of reality, while keeping the model computationally feasible and intuitively meaningful.

There are many advantages to models:

• They can help us formulate hypotheses to develop effective experiments.
• They can give insight into ecological phenomena that are difficult to measure (either because they are cryptic or rare).
• They can help us account for environmental variation, error in sampling, and missing data.
• They can generate predictions of future phenomena.
• They can incorporate multiple, disparate, types of data into one model (including expert intuition).

But, as I said before, I am mainly an empiricist because, without real data to ground truth and check the models, they don’t mean a thing (especially models based entirely on randomly generated numbers and parameters).  You see, models and experiments are complementary to each other.  The existence of one enriches the other.

One of my undergrad assistants helping me measure data in the field.

Walter Tschinkel, one of the formative influences on my career as an ecologist, once made me swear to do experiments.  At the time, I had only ever been a field assistant, so I didn’t understand the significance of the promise.  But I made it.  And I do experiments.  I always will.

That doesn’t mean I can’t do a little modeling on the side though. 

Maphead, by Ken Jennings

Tags

books, Ken Jennings, Maphead, maps, novels, quotes, reading, travel

Ken Jennings is famous for winning a television game show based on trivia.  According to Wikipedia: “His total earnings on Jeopardy! are $3,172,700, consisting of $2,520,700 over his 74 wins, a $2,000 second-place prize in his 75th appearance, a $500,000 second-place prize in the Jeopardy! Ultimate Tournament of Champions, as well as half of a $300,000 prize in the IBM Challenge.”

That’s a lot of money based on trivia!  But I’ll bet you didn’t know he was a maphead.  Well, maphead is a word he defines in his book, “Maphead”, so maybe that is not useful information.  Anyway, by his definition, I am also a maphead.  I love, love, love looking at maps.  Maps of all sorts!

You may remember this one from my recent trip around the world.

I really enjoyed Jennings’ book on maps, and I read it during my travels, which made it perfect.  I think he and I have a similar sense of humour…so, if you don’t enjoy my sense of humour, don’t read his book!

Here are some of my favourite quotes so you can decide for yourself.

Falling in love with places is just like falling in love with people: it can happen more than once, but never quite like your first time.

But nowhere, as far as I know, does God tell the children of Israel, “Verily I say unto you that life is a highway.  Yea, thou shalt ride it, even the night long.”

Or maybe, “We are all spatial-needs children!”

“We have the original military maps from the Battle of Chapultepec and charts from the Barbary Coast War,” boasts Hebert, “so I can honestly say we have the halls of Montezuma and the shores of Tripoli.”

The Belgian town of Baarle-Hertog is even more intriguing: it’s made up of no fewer than twenty-six separate pieces of Belgium sitting, thanks to a complicated series of medieval treaties between two warring dukes, in the middle of the Netherlands.  Some of these little bits of Belgium have little bits of the Netherlands inside them, leading to an impossibly intricate border that divides some village homes in half between the two nations.  Your nationality depends on where your front door is, and residents have been known to “emigrate” by moving their door every time the tax laws change.  When bars and restaurants in the Netherlands close, landlords just move their tables onto the Belgian side of their establishment and keep on serving.

I plan my vacations around places like Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch, Wales (“St. Mary’s church in the hollow of the white hazel near to the rapid whirlpool of Llantysilio of the red cave,” as any trivia fan should know)…

The history of the world is just as much a history of places as it is of people–cities and nations that were born in obscurity if not bastardy but later grew into greatness.

The British borrowed a Hindi word meaning “learned one” to describe these native scouts, and from this we derived a modern word for any self-proclaimed expert.  They were called “pundits.”

We think of trail-blazing as a tough, brawny pursuit, but there’s something solitary and nerdish at the heart of it.  What is exploration if not the urge to go somewhere where there’s no one else around–where no one, in fact, has ever been?

The Swedish crown jewels, however, are the only ones that include an orb with actual continents enameled on it, perhaps a signal of Sweden’s secret desire for world domination.

I wonder if Veley will ever get the chance to visit the island of Ferdinandea, a submerged volcano that occasionally rises out of the Mediterranean south of Sicily only to subside or erode again.  The last time it emerged, in 1831, it led to a wave of tourism, as well as diplomatic arguments over who owned the territory.  Ferdinandea last made news when the United States bombed it in 1986, mistaking it for a Libyan submarine, but scientists predict that recent volcanic activity could lead to a reappearance sometime soon.

  At midnight on May 1, 2000, some unnamed hero at U.S. Air Force Space Command, located on the high plains just east of Colorado Springs, pressed a button, and it affected millions of people all over the world.  Most of the things the government can do at the push of a button don’t immediately improve our quality of life, but this action, ordered by the president himself, made life ten times better for map nerds everywhere.  Just like magic, the Global Positioning System–an array of twenty-four satellites in medium Earth orbit–could now tell you where you were standing, anywhere on the surface of the planet, to within just a few meters of accuracy.

Big Bee News: Legacy data, phenological mismatches, and the negative impacts of high intensity agriculture

Tags

Bees, Climate change, ecology, nature, news, phenology, pollination services, research, science

There are some big bee news stories hitting the presses this morning!  Two research studies came out simultaneously yesterday in the big journal Science (and by some researchers I know personally).  It’s kind of exciting for me to see this research (and my beloved bees) getting so much attention, but there is a downside, which is that the prospects seem pretty dim.

But, before we get too dark, let’s take a look at some of the new studies that have just come out, and what they mean for bees!

The first is a study by Claire Kremen‘s group at UC Berkeley.  Dr. Kremen studies the relationship between agriculture and native bee communities, both in the ability of the wild bees to provide crop pollination services, and in the impacts that agriculture is having on the diversity of wild bees.

Breakfast with (left) and without (right) bee pollination. from scientific american

Because honeybees have been dramatically affected by Colony Collapse Disorder (representing a suite of hazards), the wild bees are becoming more important for sufficient pollination of agricultural crops.  Indeed, native bees can provide 100% of pollination requirements of crops if they have sufficient habitat.  However, Kremen’s work convincingly shows that high intensity agriculture, such as that of northern California (with massive monocultures) has strong negative impact on the capacity of native bee communities to provide these services.

But there is good news here!  Wild bees can be effective pollinators, and their efficacy increases with diversity (number of wild bee species), so it is in our best interest to provide the safe habitat and resources they need to persist and thrive.  I wrote a post on floral resource provisioning strategies a while back if you want to know more.

Okay, so now for the second study, which was conducted by Laura Burkle at Montana State University in collaboration with Tiffany Knight at Washington University in St. Louis.  This study compares a legacy dataset of fantastic proportions with a modern dataset, collected in similar habitat.

The legacy dataset was collected by an independently wealthy naturalist, by the name of Charles Robertson.  Over a period of 33 years in the late 1800s and over an area of more than 225,000 hectares, Robertson observed insect visitation to flowers.  He was competent at both insect and plant identification, and since that time more than 20 species of bees have been named for him.

Our lovely naturalist, Charles Robertson, see also this post by Wash U

Dr. Burkle and colleagues looked at the bees visiting spring ephemerals in a forested habitat.  Spring ephemerals live only for a short period of time, so they are most likely to be affected by phenological mismatch (which I address in this post).  Indeed, this study finds that both the bees and the flowers have moved their phenology up, but that the bees are emerging significantly earlier than the flowers.  The authors suggest that this mismatch is contributing to the disappearance of more than 50% of the bees Robertson observed in his study.

Spring beauty!

They also looked at the quality of pollination services provided by the bees for spring beauties (a type of spring ephemeral) and found that the fidelity of the bees has declined.  In other words, they are carrying more different types of pollen, so they are visiting other flower species.

This is a scanning electron micrograph of a spring beauty pollen grain, from asu.edu

So that seems like pretty bad news.  But keep in mind that a) this study was a lot shorter than Robertson’s (only two years) b) the habitat was a lot smaller (well, that’s not necessarily a plus) and c) these bee species are not necessarily extinct, just locally extirpated.

Anyway, potentially a very interesting example of that phenological mismatching I was talking about last week!  And two very cool bee studies!  What more could you ask for?

Oh yeah, an adorable bee!

You might also want to check out this story on NPR.

Phenological mismatches: How species might lose each other in the face of climate change

Tags

biology, Climate change, ecology, interactions, mismatches, phenological shifts, phenology, research, science

There are many scientists studying the ecological impacts of climate change.  Given that climate (to include temperature, rainfall, and the frequency and intensity of major disturbance events) is one of the major determining factors of where a species can live and therefore which organisms it interacts with, changing climates are likely to have a huge impact on ecosystems.

Nobody knows for sure exactly how ecosystems will change…there is too much stochasticity (or randomness) in the world for us to make accurate predictions.  Not only that, but the world is complex!  And dynamic!

One thing we know for sure, though, is that the world is changing.  We have observed shifts in species distributions, fluctuations in population dynamics, and shifts in phenology (or the timing of species seasonal activities, such as flowering).

Different types of phenological mismatch, Fig 1 from Miller-Rushing et al. 2010

So the question becomes, what happens to the interactions between two different species that are responding independently to climate change?  What if the interaction is dependent on phenology (as most interactions are) and both species shift their phenology in response to climate change?  These interactions, which are ephemeral, depend on the meeting of two organisms in space and time.  Change one or the other, and you increase the risk that the interaction will vanish.

For example, you might imagine that a plant is more responsive to photoperiod (the amount of daylight available), while an insect is more responsive to temperature.  The photoperiod will not change with the climate…the days will be equally long or short according to the season.

But the temperature will change.  Perhaps it will be warmer earlier in the spring.  In that case, the insects might become active before the plants.

If both interacting partners shift their phenologies together, there will be no mismatch, but if one shifts more than the other, there is the potential that the interaction will no longer exist.  This is what we call phenological mismatch.

Has anybody seen my flower?  Osmia conifrons

There is some possibility for these phenological mismatches to be quite serious.  A bee that emerges too early might starve for lack of a flower to visit.

Or an caribou that migrates too early might find its feeding place barren.

From tol.org, photo by Patrick

Now, of course the whole scenario is more complicated than it seems at first glance.  There is the potential for one or both interacting partners to adapt to the shift in phenology.  There is the possibility for range shifts to accommodate shifting phenologies.  There is the possibility for evolutionary responses and adaptations.

Because of the complexity and uncertainty involved, this is a hot area of research (pun intended!).  We want to know when phenological mismatches might occur, the species they might endanger, and the mutualisms that might vanish.

Abuzz with electricity

Tags

Bees, bumblebee, cool biology, ecology, electricity, foraging, insects, news, science

Before and after application of charged powder pigments, Image courtesy of Dominic Clarke and Daniel Robert

Well, if this just isn’t the coolest thing ever!

Researchers have recently found that bees use electrical field to find flowers.  The study, published online 21 February in Science Express (Clarke et al. 2013), specifically tested the ability of one species of bumblebee (Bombus terrestris) to detect electrical fields on flowers.

The way this works is that the flying bumblebee develops a positive charge, while the grounded (ha! a pun!) flower is negatively charged.  When the flower is visited by bees, its charge becomes more positive, so bees can sense when a flower has been visited many times (and thus probably has fewer resources to offer).

So not only do bees use polarized light, ultraviolet reflectance, and chemical cues to find the right flower in the meadow, now they also use electrical fields! I am starting to feel quite inferior.

It’s electrifying!

Here’s a link to a press release:  LINK

The Mitey Moth Tympanum

Tags

adaptation, biological facts, biology, evolution, mites, moth tympanum, noctuidae, parasite, science

Did you know that moths can hear*?  Many Noctuid moths (or owlet moths) are able to hear with one of the simplest ears known…simply a tympanum which resonates.  The tympanum is incredibly sensitive, and it alerts the moth to the echolocation used by bats, which are the primary predator of the adults.

Noctuidae has some wonderfully named specimens. This is the “True Lover’s Knot”, courtesy of Wikipedia.org

When a Noctuid detects the bat’s echolocation, it goes into a tailspin, flying erratically to avoid being eaten.  It is a nifty defense mechanism!  In fact, it has also been developed in response to bat predation in four other insect orders independently (Dictyoptera**, Orthoptera, Neuroptera, and Coleoptera).

Noctuid Moth Tympanum, Figure 1 from Windmill et al. 2007

But even cooler than the moth’s (admittedly clever) tympanum is the mites that parasitise the moth’s tympanum.  (If you have read a few of my posts this will be a predictable turn of events for you.)

Bat echolocation, courtesy of askabiologist.asu.edu

The tympana of the moths occur bilaterally on their thorax (i.e. they have one tympanum on each side of their body).  The mites, after landing on the body of the moth (they probably get there when a moth visits a flower), migrate to the tympanum, which they ultimately destroy. For example, the mite species Dicrocheles philanodectes pierces the inner membrane of the moth tympanum, thereby creating for itself a nice little shelter, and simultaneously providing access to its food source, the moth’s haemolymph.

These mites are considered social…in fact, they can live in colonies of up to 100 mites (all within the moth’s ear!).  But in spite of the high densities of their populations, the mites are only ever found within one of the moth’s tympana, never both.

Why?  Well, you can imagine what would happen if they occupied both tympana.  The moth would go deaf!  And then it would be much more susceptible to bat predation.  And if the moth host gets eaten, so do its parasites.

It’s a mite smart!***

*Not all moths can hear, but there are several families that do, including the Arctiidae and the Pyralidae.  The Arctiidae can also emit sound which acts as bat sonar jamming.

**Dictyoptera is actually a superorder including cockroaches, termites, and mantids.

***That’s a really bad pun.

Are you owl-right?

Tags

animal rescue, baby owls, Birds, cute, nature, owls, photography, stories

Reblogged from standingoutinmyfield:

• 
• 

An animal rescue story to warm the wintry November skies.

My friend is an arborist and hotshot (one of those huge lumberjack types that jump out of helicopters in the western US to fight forest fires: here's a link).  He was cutting down an old dead oak in someone's backyard because it was about to fall on the house.  But as it came down, he spotted an Eastern Screech Owl fleeing from a hollow in the trunk. 

Read more… 106 more words

This is a post I wrote a long time ago, and it didn't get a single like! Can you believe that? Baby owls and no likes. So I thought I'd repost it to see if it would do better this time. :)

A Colombian Horse Show

Tags

bogota, Colombia, horse shows, horses, Panaca, travel

This is a horse show I saw a couple of years back at a small finca theme park called Panaca near Bogota.  The photos are not very good because a) they are old and I was even worse at photography than I am now b) I had a cheap camera and c) it was rainy.  Still, I thought it would be fun to share today.

Insect Pests of the NE US (Full Book)

Tags

drawings, field guides, forest pests, insects, pest guide, trees

I’ve posted about each of these species individually over the past couple of weeks.  The full book is available for download as a pdf here:  ForestPestsoftheNEUS.

These are representatives of 13 of the insect families listed in the “high impact” category from the Aukemaetal_2010 economic impact assessment of North American forest pests.  There remain several families that I did not cover (listed at the bottom of this post).

All of the drawings are here and you can click on them to link to their detail page.

And tomorrow I can talk about something other than insects, whew!

Beetle Families

Buprestidae: The Emerald Ash Borer

Curculionidae: The Ambrosia Beetle

Chrysomelidae: The Elm Leaf Beetle

Cerambycidae: The Asian Long-horned Beetle

Scarabaeidae: The Japanese Beetle

Wasp Families (Symphyta)

Diprionidae: The European Pine Sawfly

Tenthredinidae: The Mountain-Ash Sawfly

Siricidae: The Old World Wood Wasp

Moth Families

Lymantriidae: The Gypsy Moth

Tortricidae: The Pine Shoot Moth

High impact moth families not shown: Coleophoridae, Gelechiidae, Geometridae, and Plutellidae

Bug Families

Adelgidae: The Woolly Adelgid

Diaspididae: The California Red Scale

High impact bug families not shown: Aphididae, Asterolecaniidae, Coccidae, Eriococcidae, Margarodidae, Pseudococcidae, and Psyllidae

Thrips Families

Thripidae: The Pear Thrips

One other family not represented was in the fly order (Diptera): Cecidomyiidae

The Old World Wood Wasp

Tags

drawings, ecology, forest pests, Giant Ichneumon, horntails, insects, nature, Old World Wood Wasp

NB: This is the last of my forest pests series. I’ll be posting the full pdf tomorrow. Thanks for reading!

The Old World Wood Wasp (Sirex noctilio) (which I have conveniently abbreviated OWWW), is yet another of those Symphytans that are causing so much trouble.  Like its cousins, it is sexually dimorphic.  And like the European Pine Sawfly, it prefers pine trees for its hosts.  However, unlike its cousins the European Pine Sawfly and the Mountain Ash Sawfly, the larvae of this species do not chew on leaves but on wood.

The adult females of the horntails, as this group of Sawflies is known, are able to drill into wood with a specialized ovipositor to lay their eggs.  The larvae are unable to directly digest wood, so they have a symbiotic relationship with a white rot fungus, similar to the Ambrosia Beetles.

The larvae leave a tunnel in the wood as the burrow around, thus compromising the integrity.  The fungus also plays a role in the ultimate downfall of the tree; as it spreads, the tree basically rots from the inside.

The wasp has many natural enemies, but one of the coolest (in my humble opinion) is the Giant Ichneumon (Rhyssa persuasoria).

The Giant Ichneumon lays its eggs on the eggs of the wood wasp. Courtesy of Wikipedia.org

The Mountain Ash Sawfly

Tags

drawings, ecology, forest pests, insects, Mountain Ash Sawfly, nature, Pristiphora geniculata, Sorbus

The Mountain Ash Sawfly is another example of a pesky Symphytan, one of the primitive wasps in the order Hymenoptera.  Similar to the European Pine Sawfly, this species specializes on one genus of trees; in this case, the genus of Mountain Ashes (Sorbus).  Again, it is the larvae that do the damage.  They are able to completely defoliate a tree, often stripping the leaves down to the midribs.

The adults are also sexually dimorphic.  Predictably, the females are larger and they have a bright yellow abdomen.  The smaller males have noticeably longer antennae (for finding mates).

In my opinion, the most interesting thing about this pest is the gregarious, lime green larvae, which line up along the edges of leaves as they feed, all in the characteristic S-shape.  Evilly, they say, “Ssssssss…”  Cute!

The Mountain Ashes are not of major economic importance, so less effort is put into the control of this pest.

Pear Thrips

Tags

Acer saccharum, drawings, ecology, forest pests, insects, nature, Pear Thrips, Thysanoptera

Thrips, or insects of the order Thysanoptera, are tiny herbivores.  They have rasping mouthparts which cause leaf tatter in many species.  The Pear Thrips (Taeniothrips inconsequens) in particular attacks hardwood trees.  It is mainly considered a threat only to the Sugar Maple (Acer saccharum).

Other species of thrips have been implicated in pollination services, for example in Australian Cycads, on islands, and in the tropics.  Their efficacy in this case is nonintuitive, as they are primarily pollen predators, but it highlights the continuum from antagonist to mutualistic interactions that occurs in nature.

Although damage from this pest is usually light (hence the Latin name inconsequens), in some years it can be quite significant.  The trouble with controlling them is that they often establish themselves in young buds before the trees leaf out.  Such young tissue is highly susceptible to the damage the thrips can cause.

NB: The word “thrips” applies both singularly (to one “thrips”) and also in the plural (to many “thrips”).  Just another weird thing about these guys.

The Pine Shoot Moth

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ecology, forest pests, insects, nature, Pine Shoot Moth, pine trees, Rhyacionia buoliana, Tortix

The Pine Shoot Moth (Rhyacionia buoliana) is a member of the Tortricid moth family (one of the prettier members, actually).  Although its bright colouration might make it noticeable, the adult and larval stages are rarely seen.  Rather, the damage on the pine trees is usually what first attracts attention to an infestation.

Pine Shoot Moths are another pernicious pest of pine trees (like the European Pine Sawfly).  The adults lay eggs in the growing meristem (tips) of pine shoots.  As the eggs hatch, the larvae consume and damage the surround tissue, causing the tip to turn brown and wilt.  This can result in some interesting patterns (known as “post-horn”).

Example of a growth pattern caused by a Pine Shoot Moth, courtesy of ento.psu.edu

Fortunately, once it is known that there is an infestation, mechanical control is relatively simple.  Managers can simply delay the trimming of the branch tips until after the eggs have been laid.  This will kill the developing larvae and protect the tree from further damage.

The Tortix moth family includes many serious pests: Bud Moths, the owner of the common “worm” in your apple the Codling Moth, Rose Leaf Rollers, and Plum Fruit Moths (to name a few).

The European Pine Sawfly

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ecology, European Pine Sawfly, forest pests, hymenoptera, insects, nature, pine trees, Symphyta

The European Pine Sawfly (Neodiprion sertifer) is a member of a primitive suborder within the insect order Hymenoptera (home to the ants, bees, and wasps).  The suborder Symphyta is distinct from other Hymenopterans in that their waists are not constricted.  There are many Symphytan species that are pests; the larvae are often voracious herbivores and can reach high densities.

Adults of this pest are sexually dimorphic (see the Gypsy Moth).  The males have large, elaborate antennae designed to pick up the chemical pheromones released by the females.  This is a common trend in the insect world when the males must seek out the females over large areas.

The major economic cost of this pest comes from aesthetic damage to Christmas tree plantations.  The trees usually survive an infestation of sawflies, but they lose their needles and become brown and unhealthy looking.

The Japanese Beetle

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drawings, ecology, forest pests, insect pests, Japanese Beetle, nature, Popillia japonica, scarabs

The Japanese Beetle is a very familiar pest to most gardeners.  This is an example of an extreme generalist.  In contrast to the Elm Leaf Beetle (also known for its tendency to skeletonize leaves), which tends to only attack species within the genus Ulmus, the Japanese Beetle is known for attacking more than 200 species, many of which are favoured ornamentals, such as roses.

The grubs (which is the common name for beetle larvae, just as “caterpillar” is the common name for butterfly and moth larvae), are white and sickly looking and are found in the soil.  They curl into this typical C-shape (illustrated above).  Other beetle grubs are very similar, however, so they can be difficult to identify at that stage.

The adults are actually quite pretty, as are many members of the beetle family Scarabaeidae, or the Scarab beetles.  Usually, this family name calls into mind the Egyptian scarab, which looks like this:

Ah, the illustrious dung beetles! Courtesy of Wikipedia.org

But which is often represented in art like this:

Scarabs found on etsy are usually in gold, this is the work of ThePeddler

Beetles in general are poor fliers…they are built like tanks and their heavy, protective elytra make them uncoordinated and slow.  To take advantage of this weakness, control and monitoring methods involve flight interception pheromone traps.  In other words, the beetles are attracted by the pheromone smell, whack into the wind vane, and drop into the collection bag below.

The beetles are such poor fliers, in fact, that you could probably snatch one out of midair by hand.  I know I have, many times.

The Gypsy Moth

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drawings, ecology, forest pests, Gypsy Moth, insects, invasive species, Lymantria dispar, nature

The Gypsy Moth (Lymantria dispar) was introduced to the US in 1869 in an attempt to develop a silk industry in the US.  The larvae (or caterpillars) produce a silk cocoon, and can disperse on the wind using silk threads.  However, they rapidly escaped and became a nuisance in eastern forests, defoliating large swaths of trees.

The preferred host of the Gypsy Moth caterpillar is oak trees, but they will also feed on a number of other species, including aspens, apples, sweetgums, alders, basswoods, poplars, and willows.  They avoid tree species that have high levels of secondary defense compounds, such as walnuts and cedars.

Gypsy Moth adults are sexually dimorphic; the females are white, and a bit larger, while the males are mottled brown with large, feathery antennae.  The antennae are larger in males because they are sensitive to the chemical pheromones released by the females.  Since the males do all of the seeking, the females do not need elaborate antennae.  Their larger size, however, allows them to invest more energy in egg development. (This is true not only for many arthropods, but also in many vertebrate species.)

The chemical sensitivity of the males is the key to one method of monitoring.  Managers will set out pheromone baits (using synthetic pheromone that mimics the natural female pheromone), to determine whether Gypsy moths are present in a given locale.  If they are, the area is often sprayed with pesticides before the population can grow to dangerous densities.

The Gypsy moth is a major pest, and between 1970 and 2010 (just forty years!), it defoliated 80.4 million acres of forest.  For this reason, the Gypsy moth’s population dynamics, and methods of controlling it, are hot topics in ecological research.

One of the major predators is the white-footed mouse:

This guy, photo by M.L. Campbell