«
More scale insects would be a problem, since scales can weaken or kill the trees they live on,» Youngsteadt says.
Not exact matches
But the presence of increased heat and / or
scale insects, when combined with water stress, had a multiplier effect — curtailing growth far
more than water stress or
scale insects alone.
Given the shared urban and historical pattern, the researchers also predicted that
scale insects would be
more abundant in rural forests today than in the past, as a result of recent climate warming.
One factor is that researchers have found warmer temperatures increase the number of young produced by the gloomy
scale insect — a significant tree pest — by 300 percent, which in turn leads to 200 times
more adult gloomy
scales on urban trees.
The Ecological Applications study's findings are also consistent with an earlier study from Frank's lab that found another
scale insect species is
more abundant at warmer temperatures due to increased survival rates.
The researchers found that
scale insects and spider mites — well known tree pests — were
more abundant at hotter sites.
«If you
scale down the system, you become much
more power - efficient and agile,» Sitti says about the
insects» superior speed.
O'Keeffe's
more moderately
scaled paintings were so closely cropped to their subjects that they instill in the viewer a sense of having physically shrunken to a diminutive, nearly
insect - like size.
In other words,
scale - infested branches were
more than twice as common during hot periods than cool periods — exactly as we would expect if
scale insects benefit from warming in rural forests as they do in the city.
Based on his research, he believes that once production of edible
insects is
scaled up, the impact of feed, energy, processing and transportation will make bugs no
more sustainable than conventional protein sources.
Food writer Mintz questions how likely it is that
insects will solve the world's food woes, suggesting that «once production of edible
insects is
scaled up, the impact of feed, energy, processing and transportation will make bugs no
more sustainable than conventional protein sources.»