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Study Proves that One Extinction Leads to Another

By Guest PostAugust 15, 2012Natureafrican plains, aphids, carnivore, ecosystem, extinction, food web, frank van veen, insects, parasitic wasps, predatory fish, predatory species, ripple effect, university of exeter

When a carnivore becomes extinct, other predatory species could soon follow, according to new research.

Scientists have previously put forward this theory, but a University of Exeter team has now carried out the first experiment to prove it.

Published today (15 August 2012) in the Royal Society journal Biology Letters, the study shows how the demise of one carnivore species can indirectly cause another to become extinct. The University of Exeter team believes any extinction can create a ripple effect across a food web, with far-reaching consequences for many other animals. (more…)

Russian Dolls of the Bug World

By Guest PostMarch 1, 2012Scienceacyrthosiphon pisum, aphid alarm pheromone, aphidius ervi, aphids, apse, bacteriophage, bacterium, battle for survival, environmental sciences, Europe, hamiltonella defense, hemolymph, insect, kerry oliver, martha molly hunter, North America, parasite and host, parasitic wasps, pea aphid, russian dolls, symbiont, trans b farnesene, university of arizona, virus, wasp larva

Parasitic wasps using tiny insects known as aphids as living nurseries for their brood can sniff out whether the host insect is protected by symbiotic bacteria, researchers have discovered.

A research team including Martha (Molly) Hunter from the department of entomology in the University of Arizona’s College of Agriculture of Life Sciences has disentangled relationships in an assembly of players that resemble Russian dolls: a bacterium that lives inside a tiny insect, a virus that infects those bacteria, and a parasitic wasp that lays its eggs in the insect.

In a war between parasite and host, the parasitic wasp, Aphidius ervi, and the pea aphid, Acyrthosiphon pisum, are locked in a battle for survival. (more…)

This Beetle Uses Eggs as Shields Against Wasps

By Guest PostSeptember 19, 2011Sciencebeetle larva, beetles, charismatic organisms, cocoon, eggs, joseph deas, m amicus, martha hunter, mesquite and acacia trees, mimosestes amicus, national science foundation, novel discovery, palo verde, parasitic wasps, parasitoids, red eyes, seed beetles, southwestern us, trees of tucson, university of arizona, uscana semifumipennis, wasp

*New UA research has discovered that seed beetles from the desert Southwest shelter their broods from attacking parasitic wasps under a stack of dummy eggs.*

They lead modest lives among the palo verde, mesquite and acacia trees throughout the Southwestern U.S., laying their eggs on seed pods and defending the survival of their offspring against the parasitic wasp species that attacks their eggs before their young can develop.

They are the seed beetles Mimosestes amicus, living all around us in the trees of Tucson, and yet remaining all but invisible to our eyes – or nearly so. (more…)

Tag Archives: parasitic wasps

Study Proves that One Extinction Leads to Another

Russian Dolls of the Bug World

This Beetle Uses Eggs as Shields Against Wasps