Europe's first samurai wasps found in stink bug eggs

January 8, 2019, CORDIS

Food crops are continuously threatened by invasive pest species. One such pest that began to appear in Europe over the last decade or so is the Halyomorpha halys, commonly known as the brown marmorated stink bug. Native to eastern Asia, the bug is highly polyphagous, feeding on more than 170 plant species – including tree fruit, nuts, vegetables and field crops – and causing significant crop damage every year. To date, broad-spectrum insecticides have been the most common way of managing H. halys. However, food safety and ecosystem health concerns have made finding more environmentally friendly and sustainable control measures imperative. A promising solution is the biological control of this agricultural pest using one of its natural enemies.

First samurai wasps found in Switzerland

Research conducted in the course of the EU-funded project BINGO has led to the discovery that Trissolcus japonicas, a natural enemy of H. halys, is already present in apple orchards in the Canton Ticino, in south-eastern Switzerland. This is the first time that T. japonicus, commonly known as the samurai wasp, was recovered from H. halys egg masses in Europe. A paper published in the Journal of Pest Science provides details on this discovery.

"It is difficult to say for certain how Trissolcus japonicus arrived in Switzerland – the 2mm big wasp was probably accidentally transported from its native range along with the pest," says co-author Dr. Tim Haye in a news item posted on the EurekAlert! website. "But whether Switzerland was the actual country of introduction or whether the wasp was introduced into the climatically highly-suitable northern Italy before spreading northwards remains unclear," adds Dr. Haye, who is also a researcher at project partner Centre for Agriculture and Bioscience International.

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Longleat koala Wilpena put down after kidney disease

One of Longleat Safari Park's koalas has been put down after becoming seriously ill.

The female, called Wilpena, was one of five southern koalas to arrive from Australia last October as part of a conservation programme.

The park said it had no alternative after she developed kidney disease.

One male and four female koalas were sent to the Wiltshire park from Adelaide under a scheme to protect the vulnerable species.

They are the only southern koalas in Europe.

Longleat's Graeme Dick said oxalate nephrosis was a disease that affects almost 60% of koalas in captivity and in the wild, but the cause is unknown.

"It wasn't wholly unexpected. We did think at some stage we may encounter the problem, it just hit us quite early on in the programme," he said.

He said Wilpena had undergone two weeks of "really intense palliative care" but her kidneys stopped functioning and "the kindest thing was to let her go".

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A little squid sheds light on evolution with bacteria

Date:  January 7, 2019

Source:  University of Connecticut

Bacteria, which are vital for the health of all animals, also played a major role in the evolution of animals and their tissues. In an effort to understand just how animals co-evolved with bacteria over time, researchers have turned to the Hawaiian bobtail squid, Euprymna scolopes.

In a new study published this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, an international team of researchers, led by UConn associate professor of molecular and cell biology Spencer Nyholm, sequenced the genome of this little squid to identify unique evolutionary footprints in symbiotic organs, yielding clues about how organs that house bacteria are especially suited for this partnership.

The first squid genome was sequenced by Nyholm, along with Jamie Foster of the University of Florida, Oleg Simakov of the University of Vienna, and Mahdi Belcaid of the University of Hawaii. The team found several surprises, for instance, that the Hawaiian bobtail squid's genome is 1.5 times the size of the human genome.

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Northeast India is home to six new lizards – via Herp Digest

The Hindu, Science Writer, Aathira Perinchery 1/12/19

Not just remote forests, even crowded cities could be hiding new species. Researchers have discovered six new species of bent-toed geckos – a type of small lizard – from northeastern India, and one of them is from Assam's capital, Guwahati.

While researchers found the Guwahati bent-toed gecko (Cyrtodactylus guwahatiensis, named after the city) near a small hillock in the urban sprawl of Guwahati city, the Kaziranga bent-toed gecko, the Jaintia bent-toed gecko and the Nagaland bent-toed gecko have been discovered from Assam's Kaziranga National Park, the Jaintia hills of Meghalaya and Khonoma village in Nagaland, respectively. The Abhayapuri bent-toed gecko is currently found only in the vicinity of Abhayapuri town in Assam’s Bongaigaon district, and the Jampui bent-toed gecko, only in Tripura’s Jampui Hills. All the new lizards belong to the genus Cyrtodactylus and are called bent-toed or bow-fingered geckos, named after their bent toes.

The discoveries – by an international team from institutes including Bengaluru’s National Centre for Biological Sciences and London’s The Natural History Museum – have been published in Zootaxa. The researchers first searched for geckos along, and south of, the Brahmaputra River in northeastern India. The team then studied in detail the physical features of the bent-toed geckos they spotted in these areas. They compared them with specimens of north-eastern geckos in museum collections across India and the world, including the United States and United Kingdom. They also extracted DNA from the specimens they collected and finally confirmed the six as species new to science.

Unknown natural history.

These species are known only from a single locality each, and nothing is known of their natural history, ecology or distribution except that they are nocturnal and live on rocks, said the authors. “They are likely to be narrowly distributed endemic species,” said lead author Ishan Agarwal, who was with the Villanova University in the United States and began working on bent-toed geckos at Bengaluru’s Indian Institute of Science, a few years ago.

 “Northeast India probably has dozens more bent-toed geckos,” he added.

The discovery increases the number of bent-toed geckos described from the Himalaya and north-eastern India to 15 (nine of which have been described this year alone). Since 2017, more than 20 new species of bent-toed geckos have been described from Myanmar, too. These new discoveries are a result of surveying areas that have never been sampled before from within the Indo–Burma biodiversity hotspot, said Agarwal.

City bees: allotments and gardens can help arrest decline – study

Research also identifies pollinators’ favourite flowers, including brambles, buttercups, dandelions, lavender and borage

Damian CarringtonEnvironment editor

Mon 14 Jan 2019 16.00 GMTLast modified on Mon 14 Jan 2019 21.00 GMT

Allotments, weedy corners and fancy gardens are all urban havens for bees and other pollinators, a study has found.

The widespread decline of bees resulting from the loss of wild areas and pesticide use has caused great concern in recent years, but towns and cities have been suggested as potential sanctuaries.

The first research to examine all types of land use in cities has identified pollinators’ favourite places and flowers, many of which are often considered weeds. A team of more than 50 people spent two years examining pollinators and plants in Bristol, Edinburgh, Leeds and Reading.

The results enabled them to work out the best ways to support a rich mix of pollinator species that will be resilient to climate change and other challenges. The best strategy is increasing the number of allotments, the report says. Planting preferred flowers in gardens also helps, as does mowing grass in public parks less frequently, allowing flowers to bloom.

Allotments are particularly good places for pollinators because they provide a mix of fruit and vegetable flowers, plus weedy corners full of native plants. “Allotments are incredibly important at a city level, despite their small area,” said Katherine Baldock at the University of Bristol, who led the research. “They are a good place for pollinators to hang out and provide a win-win situation, as they are also good for food growing and for people’s health.”

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