[Pollinator] Hey Caterpillar, Buzz Off!

[Ladadams at aol.com]

Hey Caterpillar, Buzz Off!
By Sara Coelho
ScienceNOW Daily News
22 December 2008What  would we do without bees? They give us honey and 
pollinate hundreds of staple  food crops throughout the world. Now it seems that the 
insects may play yet  another role in keeping us well fed: Their buzz 
protects crops and other plants  from caterpillar damage.  
Caterpillars destroy plants by feeding on leaves, flowers, and fruits. But  
they have a predator of their own: the wasp. To defend itself, the caterpillar  
has developed sensory hairs that "feel" the air vibrations caused by the 
beating  of wasp wings. If a wasp approaches, the caterpillar stops moving or 
drops off  the plant for safety. Jürgen Tautz, a biologist at the University of 
Würzburg in  Germany, wondered whether bees, whose wings beat with a similar 
frequency to  those of wasps, would have a similar effect.  
Tautz and his Würzburg colleague Michael Rostás built two cube-shaped tents  
in the botanical garden of their university, each enclosing 10 bell pepper  
plants. They then placed about 10 beet armyworm caterpillars (Spodoptera  
exigua), a notorious crop pest, on each plant. One tent had a window  connected to a 
beehive, and feeders filled with a sugar solution attracted bees  inside. The 
second tent was closed to the outside world. After about 2 weeks,  Tautz and 
Rostás collected the leaves from the bell pepper plants.  
Bees do indeed protect crops from caterpillars, according to findings  
reported online today in Current Biology. Bell pepper leaves in the tent  frequented 
by bees experienced one-third of the leaf damage as those in the  control 
tent. Similar results were obtained from a second experiment with  soybean 
plants. When a caterpillar drops off a plant in response to a bee's  buzz, it's 
wasting precious feeding time, says Tautz. But ignoring a hovering  wasp can be 
deadly, so it pays to play it safe.  
The scientists say that the discovery highlights the need to protect honey  
bees, which are disappearing in _record  numbers_ 
(http://sciencenow.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/2007/1102/2) . "While the study was small, the results 
were convincing," says  ecologist Thomas Ings of the University of London, 
Queen Mary, a specialist in  pollinator behavior. Tautz also sees a role for the 
bees in a more  environmentally friendly type of pest control: Seeding crop 
fields with a few  more flowers should attract more bees--and fewer 
caterpillars--to a field, he  says.  
 
____________________________________
 
The editors suggest the following Related Resources on  Science sites:
In ScienceNOW

Disappearing Bee Mystery Deepens  
Erik Stokstad (2 November 2007)
ScienceNOW  2007 (1102), 2. 
|  _Full  Text »_ 
(http://sciencenow.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/sciencenow;2007/1102/2)  


 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 





Laurie Davies Adams
Executive  Director
Pollinator Partnership 
423 Washington Street, 5th  floor
San Francisco, CA  94111
415-362-1137
LDA at pollinator.org

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