Tag: Nature

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Ants are destroying your plants by nurturing perfect aphid colonies

Post author By Christopher Parsons
Post date September 14, 2016

Ars Technica:

The results were stark. All but one of the aphid colonies that were not tended by ants went extinct. Of the surviving aphid colony, only one aphid remained. Without ants to protect them, the aphids were eaten by predators like ladybug larvae and parasitoid wasps. Apparently, ants remove these predators from their herds when they come to milk the aphids for honeydew. The ants win, the aphids win, but the mugwort suffers. A version of this scenario plays out all over the world, where ant invasions often mean aphid invasions, too.

Ants: the protectors of the aphid world, apparently.

This also explains a lot about the challenges I’ve experienced dealing with aphid infestations in the past!

Tags Nature

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Researchers Are Chipping and Surveilling NYC’s Rats

Post author By Christopher Parsons
Post date August 4, 2016

Researchers Are Chipping and Surveilling NYC’s Rats:

Parson’s and his team use traps baited with pheromones—not food—to capture the rats. They know where to place the traps because rats frequently navigate the dark tunnels where they live not with their eyes, but with their fur. Rubbing themselves against walls creates a trail that’s visible with an ultraviolet dark light. According to the study the trail glows blue–white if it’s fresh, yellow–white if old. The trap has a sensor attached to it that alerts the researcher by cell phone when a rat has been caught.

Once a rat has been caught, a mobile lab is deployed. Inside researchers wearing thick gloves render the rat unconscious by dipping the rat trap in a plastic induction container filled with isoflurane, a kind of ether. An unconscious rat is an easy rat to draw specimens from. Before it wakes up, the rat blood is drawn and an RFID chip is implanted.

An interesting bit of news in addition to previous writing on rats.

Tags Nature, New York, Surveillance

Aside

Whitetail Deer

Post author By Christopher Parsons
Post date January 21, 2014

howtoskinatiger:

A Whitetail Deer (Odocoileus virginianus) chows down on a rabbit carcass.

Although primarily herbivorous deer will also meat, particularly in times of hardship such as winter when the natural food is harder to come by.

This puts the herds of deer that roam the University of Victoria in a new light.