Sarah ArnoldSep 12, 2024
Well, #Ento24 finished at lunchtime today. What I didn't toot about at the time (as was quite engaged in the workshops) were workshop sessions on:
1. Insect welfare/ethics - some good discussions/idea-pooling around the pathway to improving insect welfare in science, and what resources are needed to make it happen. And whether it should be regulated and if so, by whom. Very important and I think this is a "when" rather than an "if" with the current directions of research.
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#InsectWelfare
Sarah ArnoldSep 12, 2024
Sciarid flies in peat free growing media: everyone growing in protected environments groans when they spot them! Arthy Surendran discusses the species involved in UK, extent of problem, and some control options. #Ento24 #TCEAGrowing
Sarah ArnoldSep 12, 2024
Now Carolyn Mitchell telling us about prevalence of blueberry aphids and mummies on different blueberry varieties. Currently this is a less serious pest in UK as virus it vectors is not yet present but that may change. UK population of this aphid is very genetically diverse! #Ento24 #Horticulture #Blueberries
MAHansonSep 11, 2024

Ach beyond excited for
@spirophasma.bsky.social for his new paper on "Syntretus perlmani", a parasitoid wasp that infests *adult* #Drosophila. The supp videos on this article are incredible, and the biology of euphorin wasps is insane. Check this out #Ento24

This is your next journal club paper, hands down.
http://bit.ly/Sperlmani2024

Drosophila are hosts to the first described parasitoid wasp of adult flies - Nature

A study reports the discovery of a parasitoid wasp species that uses the adult stage of Drosophila fruit flies as its host.

Nature
Sarah ArnoldSep 11, 2024

Morgan Morrison reports high levels of Deformed Wing Virus in wild bees sampled from chalk grasslands across Europe. This is a nasty virus in honeybees that can be transmitted by, e.g. using the same flowers.

I personally think we need to be measuring and perhaps restricting the number of honeybee hives in and near protected areas/landscapes...

#Ento24 #InsectPathology

Show threadSarah ArnoldSep 11, 2024
Steve finishes by pointing out many game changing advances were made in this field by early career researchers doing "discovery" type research, so ECRs should be supported and valued. #Ento24
Sarah ArnoldSep 11, 2024
Tiny Target traps and other vector control measures making huge reductions in sleeping sickness in many regions thanks to good use of entomology! Steve Torr plenary at #Ento24
Sarah ArnoldSep 11, 2024
#WomenInEntomology session this morning celebrated historical women entomologists, including Maria Sibylla Merian, who did beautiful entomological illustrations in the 1700s. Was super thrilled to see she painted a cocoa tree when it was still a pretty novel tree for Europeans! #Ento24
MAHansonSep 10, 2024

Very cool talk by Sheena Cotter on nutritional effects on burying beetles at
#Ento24

For the uninitiated, burying beetles are known for their parental care. They make a home for their larvae, chew the food and regurgitate (like birds), & are generally great parents.

Also the home is a dead mouse 🐭

Sarah ArnoldSep 10, 2024
Proboscis extension reflex (PER) is fairly well known in honeybees/bumblebees now - bee learns to associate a stimulus (e.g. odour) with food, and starts extending the proboscis when it smells the odour, even without food. (Pavlovian type stuff.) Mandela Fernández-Grandon & team have been adapting the assay to work on restrained hoverflies. #Ento24 #Syrphidae #BehaviouralEcology