Sentences with phrase «scale insects»
"Scale insects" refers to a group of small bugs that attach themselves to plants and suck their sap. They have flat, oval-shaped bodies covered in a protective shell or scale. These insects can cause damage to plants by weakening them and making them more susceptible to diseases. Full definition
That supports the differences we saw in scale insect abundance on the trees.
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The data included temperature, how water - stressed the trees were, and the density of scale insects.
In other words, the hotter it got, the more scale insects there were.
We thought that if warming gives scales such a powerful boost in the city, global warming could do the same thing for scale insects in rural forests.
«This work makes us think that increasing urbanization and rising temperatures associated with global climate change could lead to increases in scale insect populations, which could have correspondingly negative effects on trees like the red maple,» Dale says.
Lead authors of an article describing their work with scale insects in the current issue of the journal ZooKeys are AMNH's Isabelle Vea, Ben Normark of UMass Amherst and Rodger Gwiazdowski, once Normark's doctoral student and now a postdoctoral research fellow at the Biodiversity Institute of Ontario, Guelph.
The research on scale insect abundance is published in «Urban warming trumps natural enemy regulation of herbivorous pests,» which is forthcoming from the journal Ecological Applications.
Specimen sample locations from scale insect collections across North America.
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.
In 2016, the world's first industrial scale insect recycling site went live in Cape Town with the capacity to divert 100 tonnes of waste organics from landfill per day and produce over 2,000 tonnes of MagMeal ™ per year.
To test this prediction, Youngsteadt went to 20 sites where historical specimens were collected from 1970 to 1997 and sampled their modern scale insect populations.
«But cities are unique, so we wanted to know whether warming causes scale insect population explosions in rural forests, the way it does in cities.»
«The urban and historical data are so well - aligned that we can view scale insect populations in cities as a preview of what to expect elsewhere,» Youngsteadt adds.
The results are consistent with other recent studies from Frank's lab, which showed that two species of scale insects infesting maple and oak benefit from urban warming.
In Australia, they savored the sweet - and - sour tang of honey ants and sampled scale insect larvae, which taste like fresh mushrooms and pop softly in the mouth.
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.
As a doctoral student, Gwiazdowski trekked across North America from Mexico through Canada collecting an especially large number of armored scale insect specimens.
Our work on tiny scale insects just adds to a growing body of evidence that there are probably far more species in the world than conventional methods have recognized.»
A Lethal Fungus Infects the Chinese White Wax Scale Insect and Causes Dramatic Changes in the Host Microbiota — Tao Sun — Scientific Reports
The introduced cottony cushion scale insect has been attacking mangrove stands as well as other tree species throughout Galapagos.
This team is the first to account for large scale insect outbreaks in an analysis of forest carbon balances - and to show the positive feedback loop between climate change and warmth loving insect pests.
Although the rural scale insects clearly benefited from warming, just as they do in Raleigh, they still never got as abundant as the ones we see in town.
«Scale insect density in rural areas was not as high as it was in the city, but there was a common pattern,» Youngsteadt says.
«Overall, we found a total of about five times more scale insects in 2013 than on the historical specimens from the same locations.
«We learned that the mutualism involves a third player: a species of scale insect that feeds on the tree sap and produces an excrement called honeydew, on which the ants also feed, and makes the ants a stronger mutualist.»
«Recent studies found that scale insect populations increase on oak and maple trees in warmer urban areas, which raises the possibility that these pests may also increase with global warming,» says Dr. Elsa Youngsteadt, a research associate at NC State and lead author of a paper on the work.
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.
«Scale insects were most likely to be present on specimens collected during warm historical time periods, and scales were most abundant when temperatures were similar to modern, urban Raleigh.»
«More scale insects would be a problem, since scales can weaken or kill the trees they live on,» Youngsteadt says.
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.
Scale insects (Parthenolecanium species) are well - known tree pests.
«We would see some vibrant urban trees covered in scale insects, but we'd also see other clearly stressed and struggling urban trees covered in scale insects,» says Emily Meineke, a postdoctoral researcher at Harvard and first author of a paper on the study.
In these experiments, the researchers manipulated three variables while growing the willow oaks: temperature, water and the presence of scale insects.
And scale insects had little or no adverse effect on the trees if the trees were not water stressed.
By evaluating the scale insect remains attached to each specimen, Youngsteadt estimated scale population density and compared it to the average August temperature for the year and place where the specimen was collected.
Lots of mimics therefore try to pass themselves off as ants, but one of the cleverest is this dark - footed ant spider, seen here crawling around on a leaf with some scale insects.
This image highlights the impact that a scale insect infestation can have on red maples.
«Temperature was the most important predictor of gloomy scale abundance — the warmer it was, the more scale insects we found,» Dale says.
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.
Removing the scale insects also has a negative impact, as the tree is unable to produce as much food that the ants need.»
Using observational studies and experiments, the researchers discovered that a third partner, scale insects, are the most important resource affecting ant colony size and activity, as well as their effective defense against predators.
The researchers found that scale insects and spider mites — well known tree pests — were more abundant at hotter sites.
Scale insects, however, showed a linear relationship with temperature.
«From millimeter - scaled insects to meter - scaled fishes and birds, flapping locomotion spans a range of sizes.
Citrus farmers have required increasing quantities of pesticides to cope with rising numbers of aphids, scale insects and other pests that the Argentines actively protect in exchange for the sweet honeydew they produce.
«You can't bring fruit into the country because it very often has scale insects on it, but you'd hardly know it.
«All we have been able to suggest to the authorities in Rodrigues has been to tidy up the wounds and try to protect against infestation of mealy bugs and scale insects,» says Maunder.
«Scale insects are everywhere,» he says.
After careful trials, the first ever recorded introduction into Galapagos of a species for the purpose of biological control took place when the Australian ladybug Rodolia cardinalis was released to combat the scale insect.
I think the coloring in this dress is striking, and I love that it's all from natural dyes — indigo comes from a plant and the exhibit's program says that Cochineal is a «scale insect that feeds on the Nopal cactus in arid areas of Mexico, Peru, Chile, and the Canary Islands.»