Subscribe free to our newsletters via your
. Space Industry and Business News .




FLORA AND FAUNA
Hydrogel baits offer novel way to manage invasive ants
by Staff Writers
West Lafayette IN (SPX) Feb 23, 2015


Purdue entomologist Grzegorz Buczkowski holds a beaker of dry hydrogel crystals (left) and the same volume of crystals after they have absorbed water (right). Hydrogels saturated with a chemical dissolved in sugar water are attractive baits to Argentine ants. Image courtesy Purdue University/Tom Campbell.

Water-storing crystals known as hydrogels can effectively deliver pesticide bait to invasive Argentine ants, quickly decimating a colony, a Purdue University study finds.

Pesticide sprays and baits are common tactics for managing pest ants. But sprays can have little long-term impact and carry environmental costs such as chemical contamination of soil and water sources. Baits also present challenges: Ants prefer liquid food to solids, rendering granular baits less appetizing. But liquid baits can be difficult and costly to dispense, maintain and clean up.

Associate professor of entomology Grzegorz Buczkowski (GRZHE'-gorzh buch-KOV'-skee) and fellow researchers tested the ability of hydrogels - crystals that can absorb 300 times their dry weight in water - to deliver liquid bait to invasive ants. They found that hydrogels saturated with a small amount of the chemical thiamethoxam dissolved in sugar water reduced the Argentine ant population in an orchard by about 94 percent in two weeks.

"When you drop hydrogels on the ground next to a colony, the ants really go crazy. It's like a big party," Buczkowski said. "This has great potential for managing invasive ants in other agricultural systems and natural environments. You could treat a whole vineyard using hydrogels."

The Argentine ant is the most widespread species of invasive ant, thriving in urban areas, agricultural settings and nature parks on every continent except Antarctica. The species can form "supercolonies" that link hundreds of nests and millions of workers. While Argentine ants do not bite or sting humans, they can be a nuisance in buildings and cause economic and ecological damage to agricultural businesses and natural areas where they outcompete native ant species.

In orchards and vineyards, the Argentine ant is a stalwart defender of aphids, which excrete a sweet honeydew that the ants drink. The ants protect the aphids from parasites, predators and parasitoids, allowing them to flourish and cause other problems such as sooty black mold, a dark fungus that can block leaves' access to sunlight.

Buczkowski and his team treated a plum orchard colonized by Argentine ants with small piles of hydrogel crystals saturated with 0.007 percent thiamethoxam dissolved in sugar water. Worker ants ate the bait and passed it on to the queens and larvae, decimating the population.

In laboratory tests, the bait crystals killed ant colonies in 3-5 days.

Hydrogel baits are inexpensive, easy to apply, need no dispenser and require a much smaller amount of insecticide than standard baits and sprays, reducing damage to the environment, Buczkowski said.

"We can drop the amount of the active ingredient to 0.0001 percent, and it's still effective," he said. "That is about a hundredfold less thiamethoxam than standard liquid baits and about a million-fold less than sprayers dispense."

Hydrogels also offer the advantage of selectively targeting ants, unlike sprays, which can kill beneficial insects such as bees and butterflies as well as pests.

While any ant species could eat the bait, non-target ant species have often been eliminated from areas invaded by Argentine ants or are not able to compete with Argentine ants for food sources - including the bait crystals, Buczkowski said.

Further research is needed to ensure that the hydrogel baits are not attractive to non-target insects, mammals or birds, he said.

The use of thiamethoxam in combination with hydrogels is not yet registered and was used only for experimental purposes in the study.

Using hydrogels to deliver insecticides was first tested by The Nature Conservancy, which teamed up with the National Park Service to rid Santa Cruz Island of Argentine ants. The ants had displaced native ant species on the island and were killing pollinating bees.


Thanks for being here;
We need your help. The SpaceDaily news network continues to grow but revenues have never been harder to maintain.

With the rise of Ad Blockers, and Facebook - our traditional revenue sources via quality network advertising continues to decline. And unlike so many other news sites, we don't have a paywall - with those annoying usernames and passwords.

Our news coverage takes time and effort to publish 365 days a year.

If you find our news sites informative and useful then please consider becoming a regular supporter or for now make a one off contribution.
SpaceDaily Contributor
$5 Billed Once


credit card or paypal
SpaceDaily Monthly Supporter
$5 Billed Monthly


paypal only


.


Related Links
Purdue University
Darwin Today At TerraDaily.com






Comment on this article via your Facebook, Yahoo, AOL, Hotmail login.

Share this article via these popular social media networks
del.icio.usdel.icio.us DiggDigg RedditReddit GoogleGoogle




Memory Foam Mattress Review
Newsletters :: SpaceDaily :: SpaceWar :: TerraDaily :: Energy Daily
XML Feeds :: Space News :: Earth News :: War News :: Solar Energy News





FLORA AND FAUNA
Animals tend to evolve toward larger size over time
Stanford CA (SPX) Feb 20, 2015
Does evolution follow certain rules? If, in the words of the famed evolutionary biologist Stephen Jay Gould, one could "rewind the tape of life", would certain biological trends reemerge? Asked another way: can evolution be predicted? New research suggests that, for at least one important biological trait-body size-the answer is yes. In one of the most comprehensive studies of body s ... read more


FLORA AND FAUNA
3-D printing with custom molecules creates low-cost mechanical sensor

See here now: Telescopic contact lenses and wink-control glasses

Getting in shape

Arachnid Rapunzel: Researchers spin spider silk proteins into artificial silk

FLORA AND FAUNA
Russia to Launch Two Military Satellites in February

Navy orders additional LCS mission modules

U.S. EA-18G Growlers getting new electronic warfare system

Third MUOS Satellite Launched And Responding To Commands

FLORA AND FAUNA
Soyuz Installed at Baikonur, Expected to Launch Wednesday

SpaceX launches deep-space weather observatory

SpaceX cargo craft returns to Earth

High seas force SpaceX to ditch bid to recycle rocket

FLORA AND FAUNA
China, Russia strengthen satellite navigation cooperation

India Interested in Russia's Glonass Satellite Navigation System

Latest Galileo satellites reach launch site

PLA drill applies China's own GPS

FLORA AND FAUNA
Air Force issues RFI for electronic warfare technology

U.S. Air Force pushes for more spending on big-ticket items

France to ink jet sale to Egypt as Cairo bombs IS

Egypt ends US arms 'monopoly' with French jet fighter deal

FLORA AND FAUNA
Smarter multicore chips

Penn researchers develop new technique for making molybdenum disulfide

The future of electronics -- now in 2-D

Analogue quantum computers: Still wishful thinking?

FLORA AND FAUNA
Global rainfall satellites require massive overhaul

NASA Aircraft, Spacecraft Aid Atmospheric River Study

Mud Matters

NASA Study Shows Global Sea Ice Diminishing, Despite Antarctic Gains

FLORA AND FAUNA
Turning smartphones into personal, real-time pollution monitors

Clearing up Europe's air pollution hotspots

UI engineers find switchgrass removes PCBs from soils

Researchers develop new instrument to monitor atmospheric mercury




The content herein, unless otherwise known to be public domain, are Copyright 1995-2014 - Space Media Network. All websites are published in Australia and are solely subject to Australian law and governed by Fair Use principals for news reporting and research purposes. AFP, UPI and IANS news wire stories are copyright Agence France-Presse, United Press International and Indo-Asia News Service. ESA news reports are copyright European Space Agency. All NASA sourced material is public domain. Additional copyrights may apply in whole or part to other bona fide parties. Advertising does not imply endorsement, agreement or approval of any opinions, statements or information provided by Space Media Network on any Web page published or hosted by Space Media Network. Privacy Statement All images and articles appearing on Space Media Network have been edited or digitally altered in some way. Any requests to remove copyright material will be acted upon in a timely and appropriate manner. Any attempt to extort money from Space Media Network will be ignored and reported to Australian Law Enforcement Agencies as a potential case of financial fraud involving the use of a telephonic carriage device or postal service.