LIVING TOGETHER

Sometimes the most important truth can be hidden in plain sight. There are over 250,000 flowering plants that have been described. That is probably a modest estimate, but I am not a Botanist and don’t want to over-sell. There are over 750,000 insects described. That number is actually much bigger and is expected to go over a million.

Together this means that two thirds of all life forms are monopolized by these two groups. This is not an accident. These two groups of living things live together in an intimate way. Flowering plants could not exist without the service of insects to aid them in sexual reproduction, which we call pollination. And most insects could not exist without the shelter, surface, and food (nectar, pollen and plant parts) provided by the plants. These two groups are completely symbiotic: dependent on living together.

This concept of living together is a delicate and changing arrangement. There are flowers like Passiflora incarnata, the Maypop, common in the southern United States in areas like Tennessee, that are only pollinated by Xylocopa virginica, a carpenter bee. If the bee is lost, the flower will also become extinct. Or the “bearclaw poppy”, Arctomecon humilis, which is only pollinated by a solitary bee, named Perdita meconis, unknown until just a few years ago. If the flower is lost the bee will go extinct. These last two live near the Virgin River in Southwest Utah, or Northwest Arizona, as you see it.

Sometimes this balance between organisms is upset and we call the result predation, or parasitism, or disease, or extinction, or pollution or some other term. The problem is that it is very difficult to know what will upset the balance between any two or three organisms. How do we know what to avoid, or how to avoid it. It is akin to a complex structure built out of toothpicks. It is hard to predict which tooth pick can be removed and which cannot without causing the collapse of the whole system. Generally humans don’t have a clue what we are doing in this regard.

Mankind has put a lot of energy into killing insects. Many insects compete with us for our food. Some insects transmit diseases. But ironically, mankind relies heavily on the flowering plants for food and fiber. High mountain peaches, cherries, apples, pears, and apricots are just a few of the hundreds of plants we find desirable that rely on insects. So if plants need insects, and insects need plants, and man needs plants, then doesn’t man need insects?

KILL THE INSECTS?

Sometimes the most important truth can be hidden in plain sight. There are over 250,000 flowering plants that have been described. That is probably a modest estimate, but I am not a Botanist and don’t want to over-sell. There are over 750,000 insects described. That number is actually much bigger and is expected to go over a million. Together this means that two thirds of all life forms are monopolized by these two groups. This is not an accident. These two groups of living things live together in an intimate way. Flowering plants could not exist without the service of insects to aid them in sexual reproduction, which we call pollination. And most insects could not exist without the shelter, surface, and food (nectar, pollen and plant parts) provided by the plants.

This concept of living together is a delicate and changing arrangement. Sometimes this balance between organisms is upset and we call the result predation, or parasitism, or disease, or extinction, or some other term. The problem is that it is very difficult to know what will upset the balance between any two or three organisms. How do we know what to avoid or how to avoid it. It is akin to a complex structure built out of toothpicks. It is hard to predict which tooth pick can be removed and which cannot without causing the collapse of the whole system. Generally humans don’t have a clue what we are doing in this regard

Mankind has put a lot of energy into killing insects. Ironically mankind relies heavily on the flowering plants for food and fiber. High mountain peaches, cherries, apples, pears, and apricots are just a few of the hundreds of plants we find desirable that rely on insects. So if plants need insects, and insects need plants, and man needs plants, then doesn’t man need insects?

LUNCH WITH BLOODSUCKERS

When I was young I reveled in Edgar Rice Burroughs “Tarzan” books. I don’t know if I read all twenty three or not, but I read a lot of them. And while I didn’t exactly know what a tsetse fly was then, I knew it was dreaded and carried deadly disease. So I was excited years later when I found myself in a class studying African sleeping sickness, transmitted by the “dreaded tsetse fly”.

Tsetse flies are large flies, about the size of our western horsefly, that are only found in Africa. They feed during the day, and both males and females feed exclusively on blood. In feeding they transmit a microscopic parasite called a Trypanosome that in turn causes African Sleeping Sickness.

Now, there is a great fascination by young boys, of almost any age, with gory things like blood sucking. It is a recent phenomenon that so many young girls and women have become interested in blood sucking.

One fascinating subject is how a blood sucking insect finds its food. It is surprising to me how little is known about the insect food-selection process.

It quickly becomes apparent that the simple act of getting lunch, is actually a multistep, multisensory, complex, interaction of senses, behaviors and environmental cues for an insect. For example, how does an insect even know when it’s time to eat? It is generally thought that mosquitoes feed at dusk. But how do they know when it is dusk? Is it by day length and light? That certainly seems to be one cue. However, mosquitoes kept in captivity will become restless, act “hungry”, and feed when kept in constant light conditions, if presented with other cues. Then there are those species that feed at two in the morning; you know the one that wakes you up with that dreaded buzzing in your ear.

Blood sucking insects can’t really expect dinner to remain in a fixed position until the next meal, like a McDonald’s resteraunt. So how do they locate a blood source? It is commonly thought that they follow a carbon dioxide plume, but carbon dioxide is actually only an exciter. The mosquitoes get excited whenever the concentration of carbon dioxide changes, whether it increases or decreases. They don’t follow the carbon dioxide as much as they react to it. Since carbon dioxide levels fluxuate continually, why don’t they react then? When presented with several selections on the menu, why do they always pick me? How do they decide between an arm and a leg, and which position on the arm is most attractive? The questions seem endless.

This is all complicated by the fact that there are over 3000 species of mosquito in the world and each has its own peculiar time, place, and preferred host for feeding.

Now for the amazing part: only half of mosquitoes take a blood meal, the females. The males feed entirely on plant sources of sugar. Females only require blood during reproduction. The rest of the time she lives on plant nectar also. So various floral and plant sources provide the great bulk of day-to-day mosquito energy needs. Yet our knowledge of when, where, why, and how they seek floral nectars is minimal.

Better understanding of the feeding habits of blood sucking insects would aid in the development of better control strategies, and improved disease prevention since most blood sucking insects are capable of transmitting disease. Answering questions like “How do tsetse flies know when it is dinnertime?” and “What flowers do mosquitoes prefer?” are what biologists do.

I have a couple of ideas about how to answer these questions. If you’re interested, wait until you are moved upon by some mysterious change in the carbon dioxide concentration and give me a call. We’ll do lunch.