Insect Perceptions, Irrelevant or Important

“IT WAS THE BUTTERFLIES, my people say, who brought the first human babies to their feet,” writes Canadian Richard Wagamese in “Butterflies Teachings,” an essay touching on “what’s called Enendamowin, or Ojibway worldview” in his brilliant collection, One Native Life. “Before that, the New Ones sat in innocence beneath a tree, watching the world around them with wonder. But Creator had planned more for them. Their destiny called for them to move throughout the world. These human babies were meant to walk upon their two legs, and as long as they sat under that tree their destiny could not be fulfilled…The air seemed to tremble with butterflies. The human babies were entranced. Each time they tried to snare a handful of colour, the cloud drifted away. They stretched their arms higher. They thrust out their hands. But it was to no avail. When the butterflies danced just out of reach a final time, the New Ones lurched to their feet and raced after them across the meadow. The Animal People celebrated quietly, then returned to their dens and burrows and nests. The human babies never caught those butterflies, but they kept on running, right into the face of their destiny…”

Quite a different worldview from Prague and Eastern Europe, where Franz Kafka’s famous novel Metamorphosis begins: “As Gregor Samsa awoke one morning from uneasy dreams he found himself transformed in his bed into a gigantic insect.” According to the “wall notes” in the exhibit “Disguise: Masks & Global African Art” at the Fowler Museum at UCLA, Kafka’s words inspired South Africa artist Walter Oltmann. Among neon masks, dancing mask videos and sculptured African animals wearing masks are Oltmann’s large anodized aluminum and brass wire caterpillars in the midst of “transformation and change” (metamorphosis) and fashion sketches titled “Beetles & Suits.” The suit coats are gracefully curving, shell-like beetle elytra (outer wing covers) fashionably topped off with the latest antennae, and looking both business-like and sci-fi out of Star Wars or Star Trek at the same time. I can easily imagine a cell phone age makeover of The Beatles’ Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band regalia and long hair with “beetle suits” and high-fashion antennae. Perhaps too much entomology affects the psyche. Oltmann writes that “spending an inordinate amount of time on making something that is usually considered insignificant like an insect, does make us look differently at them.” He says it “speaks of neither this nor that,” but I’m not so sure.

Insect observations appear in haiku by Japanese master Matsuo Basho, whom I think of as the late 1600s slightly more refined counterpart of 20th century Los Angeles poet Charles Bukowski, who was too busy with “other interests” to notice beetles, flies, mosquitoes and roadside weeds. In Moon Woke Me Up Nine Times: Selected Haiku of Basho, translator David Young writes: “Odd numbers predominate; a dance is occurring, and each third of the poem is a turn, a gesture, a refining or revelation… The poem seems to end almost as soon as it has begun, a small flash of lightning…A more literal version of the haiku cited (below) would be something like: What can save your life? / one leaf, with an insect / sleeping on its journey… the journey, which refers to a Chinese story that Basho’s readers would know but that is largely meaningless to English readers…‘Basho mash-ups,’ I have sometimes called my versions”:

One insect
asleep on a leaf
can save your life

Perhaps Basho was thinking of medicinal silkworms slumbering on mulberry leaves, or perhaps his mind was journeying among high mountains where ghost moths metamorphose with fungi into plant-animal hybrids that have been used in Asian medicine for centuries. David Young says about haiku: “They love to startle, first the writer and then the reader. As though a hummingbird were to land suddenly on your resting arm. It is the way the world so often surprises us.”

A haiku by Los Angeleno Mark Jun Poulos, whose observation of the seemingly mundane urban habitat nagged at me long after I thought I had dismissed its ordinary elements from consciousness:

restroom sink-—
ladybug cooling off
in a drop of water

What nagged at me was water, a vital ingredient of life, which as hard sprays of rain washes away pesky mites and aphids that are ladybug prey. Water (H2O) is also a missing ingredient in most ecological studies of interplanting, a habitat diversity strategy designed to boost populations of lady beetles and other beneficial insects providing natural pest control. Australian grape vineyards and California lettuce fields have had some success interplanting blooming rows of sweet alyssum to provide pollen, nectar and alternative prey for ladybugs, lacewings, hover flies and other beneficial species consuming aphids and other pests. Sweet alyssum is also host to micro-wasps helping Michigan asparagus growers by parasitizing leafmining pest insects, Amanda Buchanan of Michigan State University reported at the Entomological Society of America (ESA) annual meeting in Minneapolis. But if habitats are missing water, then perhaps lady beetles, which do not puncture plants to drink fluid, will leave to find restroom sinks, puddles or other water sources. Perhaps, like providing water bowls for pets, something similar needs to be researched as part of biological control habitat alternatives. Though I would draw the line at alcoholic drinks, except perhaps beer in snail and slug traps. Another urban haiku observation by Mark Jun Poulos:

sultry afternoon—
wasp hovers over a whiskey bottle
held by a drunk bum

Ethanol or ethyl alcohol, by percentage the main chemical component of distilled whiskey, should not be abused, nor perhaps should it be so heavily subsidized as a biofuel, as that incentive exacerbates huge landscape changes measurable as reduced biodiversity. At Synergies in Science, a rare Minneapolis gathering of the ESA, American Society of Agronomy, Crop Science Society of America and Soil Science Society of America, the diminishing biodiversity of a Midwest USA with 21% less wheat, 16% less hay and much more GMO corn to distill into ethanol motor fuels was as hard to ignore as a drunk with a whiskey bottle on an urban bench. Jonathan Lundgren of the USDA-ARS in Brookings, South Dakota said we need to get away from our “very pest-centric approach” and adopt a more holistic biological network approach. Instead of a Midwest saturated with pesticides to grow GMO corn to distill into fuel tank ethanol, something as seemingly simple as adding biodiversity via cover crops amongst the corn rows could produce enough soil biocontrol of corn rootworm to eliminate wasteful neonicotinoid seed treatments whose honey bee and beneficial insect friendliness is being hotly debated. Karen Friley of Kentucky State University reported at the ESA that something as seemingly simple as native plant border rows around sweet corn fields “provide microclimates in the form of moderated temperatures, which offer shelter” for numerous natural enemies controlling corn pests.

Curiously enough, ethanol (alcohol) like that in whiskey bottles and vehicle fuels also attracts pine beetles and ambrosia beetles considered destructive forest, landscape, street tree and nursery pests. Perhaps more curiously, the very trees being attacked are producing the ethanol and releasing it into the atmosphere when stressed (e.g. by drought or flood), decaying or dying. Trees may look perfectly healthy on the outside, but inside the tree is another story, because ethanol emissions are signs of sickliness and ill health. Chemical ecologist Christopher Ranger of the USDA-ARS in Wooster, Ohio said it is a real problem, for example, when nursery seedlings are used to replant spruce forests or with dogwoods, magnolias, pines, etc. in nurseries, backyards, along streets, etc. It is definitely ecology, as the ethanol is luring in the beetles to help “recycle” the trees back into the soil as nutrients.

I liked Ranger’s reasoning: Find the tree equivalent of driver breathalyzer tests as a beetle-attack early warning system. SCRAM wrist bracelets worn by offenders for transdermal drug and alcohol detection were tested, but were not sensitive enough; taking a week to detect low tree ethanol exhalations, whereas beetles detect a few parts per million of alcohol and get to trees almost on day one. The solution was a portable ethanol monitoring device with a detector tube and a plunger to pull in air samples; developed using Japan’s Gas Tech industrial gas leak detection technology for quick detection of “inebriated” trees.

So, which is more startling and surprising: art, haiku or entomology?

Strange brew: September 17, 2015 daylight turning to dark, caught in one of those infamous, almost proverbial L.A. traffic jams at a freeway underpass on Church Lane transitioning from Sunset Blvd to Sepulveda Pass on my way past the Getty Museum to Mulholland Drive, listening to the Moody Blues Live at Red Rocks, going nowhere. Haiku and fireflies flashing internally, and externally the blinking side turn lites and red back brake lights suddenly and surprisingly metmorphosed into synchronous fireflies, albeit of a mechanical or robotic nature:

Tail and Turn Lights
Flashing like Synchronous Fireflies
In the Los Angeles Traffic Jam

 

Herbicide-Resistant Grains Reduce Global CO2

THE WAR BANNERS of the North American Global Climate Change Brigade are flying high and flapping in the wind as the West’s Crusade Against CO2 (carbon dioxide) ratchets up against the alleged Lex Luther of fossil fuels, the super-villain coal favored by the up-and-coming industrial economies of India and China. But the USA has an ace in the hole, an agricultural crop super-hero warrior equivalent of the comic book-heroes Batman & Robin or the US Navy Seals ready to colonize world grain farming areas and help save the day by reducing global CO2 emissions. Though its longer term sustainability is open to question and the development of herbicide resistant weeds are almost an assured part of the package, an interesting case can be made for using grain crops resistant to herbicides (mainly glyphosate at the moment) in no-till and minimum-tillage farming systems to reduce global CO2 emissions.

“Weeds are the most significant of the economic and environmental pests, and they are the target of much of the pesticides applied throughout the world,” wrote Rachel E. Cruttwell McFadyen in an Annual Review of Entomology article titled Biological Control of Weeds. “Herbicides comprise 47% of the world agrochemical sales, and insecticides 29%. Weeding, usually by hand, accounts for up to 60% of total pre-harvest labor input in the developing world.” All this herbicide use is having predictable ecological results. According to to the International Survey of Herbicide Resistant Weeds: “There are currently 432 unique cases (species x site of action) of herbicide resistant weeds globally, with 235 species (138 dicots and 97 monocots). Weeds have evolved resistance to 22 of the 25 known herbicide sites of action and to 155 different herbicides. Herbicide resistant weeds have been reported in 82 crops in 65 countries.”

However, when the herbicide use is coupled with grain crops that are herbicide-resistant in no-tillage or minimum-tillage farming systems, the reduction in CO2 emissions from the farming systems is quite dramatic. In a 2008 article titled “Glyphosate: a once-in-a-century herbicide” in the journal Pest Management Science, S.O. Duke and S.B. Powell wrote: “Glyphosate-Resistant crop use worldwide in 2005 resulted in a reduction of carbon dioxide emissions and potential additional soil carbon sequestration equivalent to the removal of about 4 million family cars from the road in terms of effects on global carbon balance.” This positive view of Roundup Ready® crops, which are genetically modified organisms (GMOs) resistant to the herbicide glyphosate, was echoed in 2012 in the Weed Science Society of America’s journal, Weed Science: “Adoption of conservation tillage in the United States since 1982 is credited with reducing average soil erosion by 30%, raising the amount of soil carbon, and lowering CO2 emissions.”

“In 2010, the combined biotech crop-related carbon dioxide emission savings from reduced fuel use and additional soil carbon sequestration were equal to the removal from the roads of 8.6 million cars, equivalent to 27.7% of all registered cars in the UK (United Kingdom),” wrote Graham Brookes and Peter Barfoot in their 2012 UK report. “Based on savings arising from the rapid adoption of no till/reduced tillage farming systems in North and South America, an extra 4,805 million kg of soil carbon is estimated to have been sequestered in 2010 (equivalent to 17,634 million tonnes of carbon dioxide that has not been released into the global atmosphere).”

If you subscribe to the CO2-centric consensus that temperature change on planet Earth revolves almost exclusively around the evil-demon molecule, CO2, then like night follows day the case for no-tillage farming schemes using herbicide-resistant GMOs (genetically modified organisms) that sequester carbon, reduce soil erosion, minimize fossil fuel use and reduce CO2 emissions in a major way is tough to fight, even if the GMO scheme has some discomforting side-effects to swallow.

On the other hand, the consensus or majority view can sometimes turn out to be dead wrong, be it CO2 or commodity prices (e.g. houses, gold). I remember vividly the early 2000s, being in the 17% minority when an overwhelming 83% of the USA population were “in consensus” with the world “intelligence community” consensus belief in the absolute certainty of another evil demon threatening life on planet Earth, Iraqi Weapons of Mass Destruction. Turned out to be Iraqi Weapons of Mass Deception. But realistically, we cannot demand God-like perfection and 100% correctness from the consensus-making machinery. On a more scientific level, before the USA came into existence as a nation-state, there was a very sincere consensus belief (perhaps 97%) that the Earth was flat and ships sailing from Europe towards North America would be swallowed by dragons or perish in the void. A skeptical Christopher Columbus undeniably demonstrated otherwise. Likewise, Aristotle’s most accepted ancient scientific wisdom was later revised; and a skeptical Albert Einstein punched holes into previous beliefs about the nature of the physical world.

Organic and traditional grain growers do have some good reasons to resist growing herbicide-resistant GMO (genetically modified organisms) grains, despite the reduced CO2 emissions. Indeed, it is theoretically possible to develop organic herbicides (e.g. allelopathic extracts of sorghum, eucalyptus, sesame, sunflower, tobacco and brassica fight weedy wild oats & canary grass in wheat fields) and implement organic no-till and minimum-till systems with cover crops, green manures, mulches, intercropping, crop rotations, etc.

But for the moment, herbicide-resistant GMO grains have been voluntary adopted (no mandates or penalties for non-use) and dominate in the Americas for reasons having little to do with direct concern for CO2 emissions. Reduced CO2 emissions from farming systems incorporating herbicide-resistant GMO crops might be called a pleasant side effect; though logically it could become a global selling point, if not a global mandate (perhaps even enforced by the USA, EU, NATO or United Nations) as part of the “War on CO2.”

In point of fact, the IPCC (International Panel on Climate Change), which sets the European Union (EU) and global agenda on these matters is on record in their official reports, that herbicide-resistant GMOs used in no-tillage and minimum-tillage farming are a valid remedy for reducing CO2 emissions.

Though Brookes and Barfoot caution against taking their numbers too literally, because they are estimates based on assumptions and models (e.g. IPCC data), the contribution to CO2 emissions reduction from herbicide-resistant GMO crops and no-tillage farming is hard to dispute. If the consensus case against CO2 as the climate-change evil demon molecule is fully accepted and considered closed and beyond debate, then the case for herbicide-resistant GMO grains becomes politically correct and GMO-skeptics should logically be housed with CO2-skeptics in the same denial and heretic camp. However, the evil-demon status of CO2 is open to alternative interpretations incorporating some beneficial attributes of carbon atoms and CO2 molecules as essential to life on planet Earth.

Call it carbon skepticism or CO2 denial if you wish, but the famous Italian chemist Primo Levi, a concentration camp survivor (who later committed suicide) and knew firsthand that majority opinion can sometimes be tragically wrong, questioned the mainstream CO2 obsession and wrote: “Carbon dioxide, that is, the aerial form of carbon…this gas which constitutes the raw material of life, the permanent store upon which all that grows draws, and the ultimate destiny of all flesh, is not one of the principal components of air but rather a ridiculous remnant, an ‘impurity,’ thirty times less abundant than argon, which nobody even notices. The air contains 0.03 percent (CO2)…This, on the human scale, is ironic acrobatics, a juggler’s trick, an incomprehensible display of omnipotence-arrogance, since from this ever renewed impurity of the air we come, we animals and we plants…”

Lost in the shrill certitude and climate change bullying is the fact that CO2 is only 1 of about 200 atmospheric gases interacting with each other and other factors such as cloud cover in still not fully understood ways affecting climate and temperature; lack of adequate understanding for computer input is one reason why the computer model predictions are inherently prone to error and inaccuracy. Side effects of reduced atmospheric CO2 may include less plant photosynthesis (e.g. less food crop growth) and less water transpiration by plants (which may affect cloud cover and rainfall in ways that actually increase global warming).

Coal gets more of the blame for CO2 emissions. But, ironically, scrubbing (removing) sulfur dioxide (SO2) from burning coal caused much of the global warming blamed on CO2 by shrinking the Earth’s sulfate layer (which offsets the warming effect of CO2). Though the SO2 from coal burning is a pollutant we would not want back, it illustrates the complexity of the atmosphere, where selectively manipulating one thing leads to other unexpected problems. For example, put back the SO2 “scrubbed” from burning coal, and almost like magic the CO2 warming effects vanish (along with the rationale for global carbon taxes, cap-and-trade, and herbicide-resistant GMO crops to fight CO2). It’s like Dem Bones song on YouTube. Indeed, the cooling of the Earth when SO2 or sulfates are put back into the atmosphere by natural sources like volcanic eruptions is very dramatic. According to the U.S. Geological Survey:

“The most significant climate impacts from volcanic injections into the stratosphere come from the conversion of sulfur dioxide to sulfuric acid, which condenses rapidly in the stratosphere to form fine sulfate aerosols. The aerosols increase the reflection of radiation from the Sun back into space, cooling the Earth’s lower atmosphere or troposphere. Several eruptions during the past century have caused a decline in the average temperature at the Earth’s surface of up to half a degree (Fahrenheit scale) for periods of one to three years. The climactic eruption of Mount Pinatubo on June 15, 1991, was one of the largest eruptions of the twentieth century and injected a 20-million ton (metric scale) sulfur dioxide cloud into the stratosphere at an altitude of more than 20 miles. The Pinatubo cloud was the largest sulfur dioxide cloud ever observed in the stratosphere since the beginning of such observations by satellites in 1978. It caused what is believed to be the largest aerosol disturbance of the stratosphere in the twentieth century, though probably smaller than the disturbances from eruptions of Krakatau in 1883 and Tambora in 1815. Consequently, it was a standout in its climate impact and cooled the Earth’s surface for three years following the eruption, by as much as 1.3 degrees at the height of the impact. Sulfur dioxide from the large 1783-1784 Laki fissure eruption in Iceland caused regional cooling of Europe and North America by similar amounts for similar periods of time.”

Yes, major volcanoes are rarely more than a few per century; but there is also possibility of global cooling from a nuclear winter triggered by nuclear explosions. In 2011, a “rare” combination of a tsunami triggering a nuclear power plant meltdown intimidated the Japanese into shutting down their “clean” (as far as CO2 and greenhouse gas emissions go) nuclear power plants and substituting CO2-emitting fossil fuels; ironically, going against the United Nations Kyoto Protocol treaty negotiated in Kyoto, Japan. The Kyoto Treaty, whose stated “goal is to lower overall emissions from six greenhouse gases – carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, sulfur hexafluoride, HFCs, and PFCs,” had a few other flaws: “Please recall that China and India are Exempt from Kyoto standards,” writes Mish’s Global Economic Trend Analysis. “The US opted out because China was not a party. Canada signed the treaty but in 2012 Canada Leaves Kyoto Protocol, Lets China Buy Into Oil Sands.”

CO2 concentrations in the atmosphere of planet Earth have actually dropped dramatically over geologic time, and are nowhere near returning to former levels that favored plant life over animal life. University of Cambridge chemist John Emsley notes that natural sources, mainly the metabolism of food sources by plant and animal life, are still responsible for most CO2 production on planet Earth. In his book, Nature’s Building Blocks, Emsley writes: “The Earth’s early atmosphere may have contained a lot of carbon dioxide and methane, but once life evolved that began to change. Today, there is very little of these gases and a lot of oxygen instead, thanks chiefly to the action of plants which convert carbon dioxide and water into carbohydrate and oxygen by photosynthesis. The Earth’s atmosphere contains an ever-increasing concentration of carbon dioxide and carbon monoxide, from fossil fuel burning, and of methane, from paddy fields and cows. Human contributions to these sources are still minor compared with natural sources: most carbon dioxide comes from plants, microbes and animals, while methane is given off by swamps, marshes and termite mounds.”

Medicinal Caterpillar Fungus High in Nepal’s Himalayan Mountains

CATERPILLAR FUNGI ARE not everybody’s finger food, though their beautifully-sculpted medicinal mushrooms are rich in fiber, amino acids, minerals and vitamins. The caterpillar fungus of commerce, Cordyceps sinensis, grows high in the Himalayan Mountains in the larvae (caterpillars) of equally high-altitude Asian ghost moths (genus Hepialus). An ancient medicine or tonic, caterpillar fungus is in reality part insect (mummified caterpillar) and part fungus; and perhaps a conundrum for vegetarians, who might have to take a pass on its medical benefits because of its animal kingdom (insect) component.

“Cordyceps is an abundant resource of useful natural products with various biological activity, and it has been used extensively as a tonic and health supplement for subhealth patients, especially seniors, in China and other Asian countries,” write Kai Yue and colleagues at Sichuan Agricultural University in an article pre-published online in October 2012 in the Royal Pharmaceutical Society’s Journal of Pharmacy and Pharmacology.

For perhaps thousands of years (at least several hundred) in China and other Asian countries, “Cordyceps sinensis (Caterpillar fungus) has been used as a tonic for longevity, endurance, and vitality,” write Chinese Academy of Sciences researchers Zhenquan Liu et al. in an Open Access journal, Behavioral and Brain Functions. “Many studies have shown that Cordyceps sinensis modulates immune responses, inhibits tumor cell proliferation, enhances hepatic function, regulates insulin sensitivity” and modulates steroid production.

“Although Cordyceps sinensis is extensively used in Chinese medicine, it lacks scientific grounds for its efficacy,” write Liu et al. In other words, it has worked like magic for centuries; providing practical benefits, though the exact mechanisms of how it works are unknown or speculative. The Chinese researchers argue that even proponents of modern medicine objecting to traditional natural or folkloric medical treatments could benefit from studying the caterpillar fungus. Their argument is that the research results from studying the mechanisms of how the caterpillar fungus works to heal or prevent disease could also be used to develop more conventional medical or drug treatments.

Caterpillar fungus could be particularly useful for certain brain strokes, where modern medicine lacks effective drugs and treatments. ”The lack of effective and widely applicable pharmacological treatments for ischemic stroke patients may explain a growing interest in traditional medicines,” wrote Liu et al. An example is “self-medication or preventive medicine” to prevent cerebral ischemia. In this type of stroke, brain oxygen levels are too low; which can trigger a cascade of biological events leading to brain damage and death. Caterpillar fungus prevents or protects against this type of brain stroke (“ischemia-induced brain infarction”), presumably by inducing or modulating production of a steroid, 17beta-estradiol.

Cordyceps sinensis mushrooms growing out of golden caterpillar bodies are sometimes artfully and decoratively displayed in high-end Chinese herbal shops. Caterpillar fungus achieved some notoriety when it was revealed to be a dietary supplement for Chinese athletes bringing home gold and silver medals at the 2008 Beijing Olympics.

“In China, this fungus is usually called ‘Dong Chong Xia Cao,’ which means ‘Worm in winter and grass in summer,’” write Kai Yue and colleagues at Sichuan Agricultural University. “This insect parasitizing fungus lives primarily on the head of the larva of one particular species of moth, Hepialus armoricanus Oberthur (Lepidoptera), but is occasionally found growing on other moth species. Cordyceps was first introduced to Western society during the 17th century. In 1878 Saccardo, an Italian scholar, named Cordyceps derived from China officially as Cordyceps sinensis (Berk.) Sacc., and this nomenclature has been adopted up to the present day.”

At a Nepal Overseas Entomologists members symposium at the Entomological Society of America (ESA) annual meeting in Nov. 2012, at the Convention Center in Knoxville, Tennessee, Bhishma Subedi of the Asia Network for Sustainable Agriculture and Bioresources (ANSAB) screened a 20-30 minute documentary film as part of a talk titled, “Cordyceps sinensis a natural viagara(sic) from the mountains of Nepal.” Even the other Nepali entomologists in attendance learned something new, as the caterpillar fungus is found only in remote Himalayan Mountain locales; and it is not common knowledge, even in Nepal.

Known in Nepal by its Tibetan name, yarsagumba, caterpillar fungus is well-hidden; blending like a camouflaged black joss stick into black soils and grasses on slightly north-facing (5-10 degrees) Himalayan slopes 3,200 to 4,500 meters (10,500 to 14,800 ft) high. Yarsagumba lands are several days trek from anyplace where people normally live, and the ground is covered in snow 6 months of the year. But this is where temporary high-mountain camps must be set up for hunting the difficult-to-find caterpillar fungus.

Searching for the camouflaged black and debris-covered yarsagumba means crawling on hands and knees or bending over among short grasses and melted snow. Men search for yarsagumba and other medicinal herbs in the vicinity, while women stay behind and maintain the base camps. A certain Buddhist purity is maintained in yarsagumba lands; there is no alcohol, no tobacco and no shouting, loud voices or arguing. People pray, and the first yarsagumba found is offered to the Gods.

The beauty of the mountains belie the harshness of the climate and the difficulty of the life in search of yarsagumba; it’s a tough way to earn money in these remote mountains where economic opportunities are few. Storms can come at any time, and it is easy to fall down a steep cliff when climbing in the snow. A fall near a cliff edge can mean loss of limbs and frequently death. There are no second chances, no safety nets to catch you up here. Medical treatment is do-it-yourself, by necessity. Conventional medicine and doctors are many days distant. Widows are commonplace at all ages; and many subsistence families in Nepal have lost husbands, fathers, brothers and sons during the search for yarsagumba and medicinal herbs that may help others prevail against brain strokes and other maladies.

It takes seven cleanings with a toothbrush to remove all the debris and black soil, and make the black yarsagumba look like a proper insect, namely a golden caterpillar. The going price from the middlemen is 80,000 rupees per kilo; with 3,500 to 4,000 pieces of clean golden caterpillars per kilo. It takes five people a month to find a kilo. People are doing well to come out of the season with 60,000 rupees, before the expenses of the trek and weeks or months of camp costs. Recently, the Nepal government imposed a 20,000 rupee per kilo tax or royalty on the trade.

After being steamed and packaged, most of the yarsagumba eventually is exported and finds its way to the Chinese market. The yarsagumba trade is estimated at 2 tons annually. But in Nepal, since the government-imposed 20,000 rupee/kilo royalty or tax went into effect, it was like the yarsagumba harvest had become illegal for Nepal’s subsistence mountain people. Royalties were paid on only 3 kilos in a recent year. Perhaps there is a free market and tax lesson in all this. Or perhaps it is just part of the great wheel of life.

Carbon Dioxide Gas Combats Bed Bugs

CARBON DIOXIDE GAS, an essential nutrient for photosynthesis and the human and animal food chain consuming green plants, can also play a key role in bed bug control. As an attractant, carbon dioxide (CO2) is useful for monitoring and trapping bed bugs and other vampire-like blood-suckers attracted to the gas, including ticks, mosquitoes, and assorted biting flies. Carbon dioxide gas, which has been used to fumigate everything from stored grain and food products to freight containers, museum collections, and hotel and motel rooms, can also be used to fumigate clothing, furnishings, books, electronics, and other bed bug-infested items.

Carbon, carbon dioxide, and the carbon cycle are integral to our very existence on planet Earth. “The carbon of the Earth comes in several forms,” writes University of Cambridge chemist John Emsley in his fascinating Oxford University Press book, Nature’s Building Blocks (An A-Z Guide to the Elements). “Most of what we eat –carbohydrates, fats, proteins and fibre – is made up of compounds of carbon…most ingested carbon compounds are oxidized to release the energy they contain, and then we breathe out the carbon as carbon dioxide. This joins the other carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, from where it will again be extracted by plants and become part of the carbon cycle of nature…The cycle rules the tempo of life on Earth and turns over 200 billion tonnes of carbon each year…In this way carbon is passed up the various food chains, with each recipient releasing some as carbon dioxide, until most carbon is back where it started.”

Does this mean that using carbon dioxide for bed bug control is environmentally acceptable, since it is kind of a “miracle of life” gas behind photosynthesis and plant life? Or is carbon dioxide really more the evil greenhouse or global-warming gas causing global climatic havoc and deserving of punishment via carbon taxes and elimination from the atmosphere via geological carbon sequestration (storage) schemes? Perhaps we should offset carbon dioxide releases for bed bug pest control with offsetting carbon dioxide injections into greenhouses, where elevated CO2 levels increase yields of greenhouse roses, tomatoes, cucumbers, peppers and other crops.

“Carbon is probably the most important element from an environmental point of view,” writes Emsley in Nature’s Building Blocks. “The Earth’s early atmosphere may have contained a lot of carbon dioxide and methane, but once life evolved that began to change. Today, there is very little of these gases and a lot of oxygen instead, thanks chiefly to the action of plants which convert carbon dioxide and water into carbohydrate and oxygen by photosynthesis. The Earth’s atmosphere contains an ever-increasing concentration of carbon dioxide and carbon monoxide, from fossil fuel burning, and of methane, from paddy fields and cows. Human contributions to these sources are still minor compared with natural sources: most carbon dioxide comes from plants, microbes and animals, while methane is given off by swamps, marshes and termite mounds.”

Obviously best to avoid bed bug infestations, and not have to think about remedies like carbon dioxide trapping or fumigations. Italian chemist Primo Levi makes the most persuasive literary argument: “Carbon dioxide, that is, the aerial form of carbon…this gas which constitutes the raw material of life, the permanent store upon which all that grows draws, and the ultimate destiny of all flesh, is not one of the principal components of air but rather a ridiculous remnant, an ‘impurity,’ thirty times less abundant than argon, which nobody even notices. The air contains 0.03 percent; if Italy was air, the only Italians fit to build life would be, for example, the 15,000 inhabitants of Milazzo in the province of Messina. This, on the human scale, is ironic acrobatics, a juggler’s trick, an incomprehensible display of omnipotence-arrogance, since from this ever renewed impurity of the air we come, we animals and we plants, and we the human species, with our four billion discordant opinions, our millenniums of history…”

Bed bugs concern themselves little with environmental correctness, and just tune into characteristics like the heat and carbon dioxide released by metabolizing warm-blooded meal hosts like humans, poultry, rodents, rabbits, etc. A flush from a CO2 cartridge is enough to flush bed bugs from their harborages or hiding places onto a bed in search of a meal. But more naturally, bed bugs follow CO2 gradients to locate live hosts for their blood meals.

“Carbon dioxide has been shown by several researchers to be the most effective attractant for bed bugs,” University of Florida-Gainesville entomologist Philip Koehler told a recent Entomological Society of America (ESA) annual meeting. Humans produce about 700 mg (0.02 oz) of CO2 per minute. “Thus, detectors with very slow CO2 releases cannot compete with human hosts,” said Koehler. “A rapid CO2 release is a better mimic to the human breathing pattern. Detectors with fast CO2 release captured about 4x more bed bugs than detectors with slow release.”

Trapping or monitoring bed bugs with CO2 is complicated by the fact that at different times in the life cycle bed bugs seek out hosts (releasing CO2) for blood meals when hungry; and then when well-fed, instead of CO2 bed bugs seek shelter in groups or cracks and crevices. So although CO2 is the better lure for hungry bed bugs, bed bugs that have fed have different needs and respond to different lures.

A commercial product, FMC’s Verifi(TM) trap, is a dual-action detector combining “fast CO2 generation with liquid kairomone and pheromone lures to attract both host-seeking bed bugs and aggregation-seeking bed bugs,” Koehler told the ESA. Carbon dioxide and the kairomone lure blood-seeking bed bugs into a pitfall part of the trap from which there is no escape. A pheromone lures harborage- or aggregation-seeking bed bugs seeking shelter in cracks and crevices into another part of the trap.

“An inexpensive detector that can be left in place and routinely serviced is needed to aid pest management professionals,” Ohio State University’s Susan Jones told the ESA. “Rutger’s do-it-yourself dry ice (frozen CO2) traps are a cheap and effective method for overnight surveys of potentially infested habitations.” An experiment in a 13-story high-rise apartment building in Columbus, Ohio compared (see You Tube video) 3 Verifi(TM) bed bug detectors per room with 1 CO2-generating dry ice trap per room and canine (dog) detection teams (2 dogs/room; same handler).

Verifi(TM) traps detected bed bugs in 11 of 17 infested rooms in the first 24 hours; and in 14 of 17 infested rooms within a week. Dry ice traps had similar efficacy. Dogs detected bed bugs in 19 rooms, including 3 rooms where neither visual inspections nor dry ice or Verifi(TM) traps detected anything. But the dogs were also not perfect, as each dog also missed 1 room rated positive for bed bugs. So the quest to capture bed bugs with carbon dioxide and other lures goes on.

Human ingenuity seems almost unlimited when it comes to traps. Carbon dioxide, heat and other attractants are all being tested with traps as varied as Susan McKnight Inc.’s Climbup bed bug trap and pitfall traps made from inverted dog bowls painted black on the outside. Rutgers’ Narinderpal Singh tested CO2, heat, and lures such as nonanol, octanol, 1-octen-3-ol, coriander, and spearmint with inverted dog bowl pitfall traps. CO2 had an additive effect with multiple-component lures in inverted dog bowl traps, and may be developed into an inexpensive monitoring system for detecting low levels of bed bugs. Trials with baited traps are continuing.

Both carbon dioxide and ozone show fumigant potential against bed bugs. Purdue University’s Kurt Saltzmann told the ESA of “Two devices capable of delivering ozone to laboratory fumigation chambers.” One device delivered a short exposure to high ozone levels, and the other long exposure to low ozone levels. “Preliminary experiments showed that adult male bed bugs were susceptible to relatively short periods of ozone exposure when high concentrations of ozone were used,” said Saltzmann. “100% mortality was achieved when bed bugs were exposed to 1800 ppm ozone for 150 minutes.” Low ozone fumigation is also being tested with 1-2% hydrogen peroxide for up to 72 hours.

Carbon dioxide (CO2) is used by libraries, museums, and others as an insect-killing fumigant. Indeed, dry ice (frozen CO2) to release CO2 gas is cheaper than washing and drying fabrics to kill bed bugs, Rutgers University’s Changlu Wang told the ESA. At an 80% concentration, CO2 kills all bed bug eggs in 24 hours (eggs are the toughest bed bug life stage to kill). A 50% CO2 concentration for 8 hours is sufficient to kill bed bug nymphs (immatures) and adults.

Wang’s CO2 fumigations involved filling Husky garbage bags 90% full of items such as mattress covers and fabrics, leaving little room for air. Then the bags were sealed with dry ice inside for several hours. Books, electronics, toys and other items damaged by heat treatments might benefit from the low temperatures created by dry ice treatments. However, for safety reasons Wang recommends wearing gloves and turning on fans for ventilation when opening many bags filled with carbon dioxide gas (fumigant).

Earthworm Compost, Medicinal Honey & Fewer Hive Sprays Avert Bee Collapse

HONEY BEE COLONY COLLAPSE DISORDER and subtle learning and memory pesticide effects were among Biocontrol Beat topics detailed in Feb. 2011 (Honey Bees, 24-Hour Surveillance Cameras & Pesticides). For many attendees of Entomological Society of America (ESA) annual meetings, the two reports on pesticide effects on honey bees and bumble bees in the 30 March 2012 issue of Science magazine were just two more data bits, nothing particularly surprising; albeit good headline news fodder and a bit troubling. Perhaps a slight feeling of déjà vu for those familiar with Rachel Carson and her book of more than half a century ago, Silent Spring.

To imbibers of energy-boosting, nervous system stimulants like coffee, tea, and the many other caffeinated beverages flooding the marketplace, the idea that a common natural (e.g. botanical) or synthetic chemical might affect behavior is almost a no-brainer, though not necessarily self-evident. Caffeine has gone from fruit fly studies to mosquito control remedy recently. Natural nicotine from tobacco family plants has had almost an opposite trajectory, having once been widely used (e.g. burned as a fumigant) and recommended (e.g. soaking cigarette butts in water) for pest control in agriculture, greenhouses, and organic gardens; and now shunned because of its toxicity to humans and beneficial insects.

Neonicotinoid pesticides, like the widely used imidacloprid, had their design inspiration in natural nicotine molecules; but are safer to humans and other animals. But perhaps not totally without adverse effects, if indeed it is possible to have a substance that is toxic and yet totally safe. The Science reports associate neonicotinoid chemicals like imidacloprid with reduced bumble bee colony size and queen production, as well as lower honey bee survival and foraging success.

Though the scientific data will be subjected to further debate and future studies may confirm or refute the results, Science magazine writer Erik Stokstad, in an accompanying news and analysis, marshaled a stunning statistic to go with the reports: “In the United States alone, 59 million hectares of crops are protected by systemic pesticides. Seeds are treated with these neurotoxins before planting, and the poison suffuses the tissues, pollen, and nectar…”

Nonetheless, as ESA annual meeting habitués may know: genetics, pathogens, parasites, and beekeeper practices apparently also figure into the still mysterious honey bee Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD). Perhaps aptly for a confusingly mysterious disorder, CCD, the acronym for Colony Collapse Disorder, is confusingly the same as the Community College of Denver, charged-coupled devices (like those capturing images in digital cameras), Confraternity of Christian Doctrine, and The Convention Centre Dublin, to mention but a few highly-ranked “CCD” terms in Google.

Those who put their faith in scientific panels, better testing, and more government regulation will be heartened to know that Stokstad says more is on the way in Europe and the USA. Those wanting to do something practical right now to help the honey bees and native bumble bees pollinating their backyards and fields might find more encouragement in some of the presentations coming out of the Entomological Society of America (ESA) annual meetings.

For example, North Carolina State University soil ecologist Yasmin Cardoza, who has shown that earthworm compost produces plants more resistant to caterpillar pests and aphids, more recently told the ESA that amending a cucumber soil (model system) with earthworm compost (vermicompost) helped bumble bees and other native pollinators become heavier, healthier, and more fecund.

Cucumber plants grown in soils amended with earthworm compost had flowers (pollen, nectar) with significantly more protein and a bit more sugar. These more nutritious flowers grown with earthworm compost attracted more bumble bees and native pollinators. Plus the bumble bees had more and larger ovary cells and egg tubes (i.e. an indication of enhanced reproduction), weighed more, and had fewer disease pathogens. Whether earthworm compost can reverse or prevent Colony Collapse or create Colony Expansion would make for an interesting study.

Beekeeping methods also take a hit for exacerbating honey bee problems; and are illustrative of how mites, insect pests and pesticides make for the type of challenging problem that in previous centuries were solved by privately-funded freelance scientists like Louis Pasteur. Pasteur’s freelance entomological endeavors included almost single-handedly rescuing the nineteenth-century silk industry from a similar mysterious collapse of silkworm colonies (insect colonies seem particularly prone to epidemic collapse when you want them; but resistant to collapse when you would rather be rid of them, like termite and fire ant pests). Rene Dubos’ account in his 1950 book, Louis Pasteur Free Lance Of Science, is well worth reading for free on the Internet (pdf, Kindle versions). By early twenty-first century standards, Pasteur seems almost like a Rambo of science, accomplishing with a few assistants what would seem impossible today.

Even if the cause of honey bee colony collapse is still mysterious, like silkworm colony collapse was prior to Pasteur, there is no doubting the reality of the problem.

“In Virginia, the number of managed honey bee colonies have declined by about 50% since the late 1980s due to the introduction of parasitic mites,” Virginia Techie (Blacksburg, VA) Jennifer Williams told the ESA. “Excessive reliance” on fluvalinate (a pyrethroid miticide) and coumaphos (an organophosphate miticide) have “been implicated in numerous problems to honey bees, including impaired reproductive physiology, reduced ability of colonies to raise queens, reduced sperm viability in drones (males), and increased queen failure and loss.” Often these miticides are found in combination with imidacloprid (systemic insecticide), chlorothalonil (broad-spectrum fungicide), and the broad-spectrum antibiotics oxytetracyline and streptomycin used by beekeepers to combat American foulbrood disease in honey bee hives.

Fluvalinate, coumaphos, coumaphos-oxon, and chlorothalonil are found in almost half of North American honey bee colonies at ppb (parts per billion) levels that can be acutely toxic. Combining miticides, pesticides, and antibiotics is a toxic cocktail recipe boosting honey bee mortality 27-50%, according to Williams. In other words, it is a vicious circle in which beekeeping practices (e.g. miticides, antibiotics, substituting sugar water for honey) may have deleterious effects offsetting curative effects on already weakened and mentally confused bees feeding on plants treated with pesticides rather than healthy composts like those being studied by Cardoza.

As if honey bees did not have enough health problems, the small hive beetle (Aethina tumida) is now part of the mix. “In their native range in South Africa, these beetles cause relatively little damage,” Natasha Wright of the University of Arkansas told the ESA. “However, they can be destructive to honey bee colonies in the United States and Australia. The adults and larvae feed on bee brood and bee products. They also cause honey to ferment, which results in unsellable honey. Little is known about the biological control agents.”

“Identifying new mechanisms that support honey bee health will be pivotal to the long-term security and productivity of American agriculture,” Emory University’s Lydia McCormick told the ESA. “Hydrogen peroxide is a potential natural defense/stress response to small hive beetle,” a pest which can devastate a honey bee colony in weeks or months. Not to knock beekeepers, who have enough problems already, but their practice of feeding bees sugar water rather than honey laced with hydrogen peroxide may be part of the problem. Honey bees produce more hydrogen peroxide in their honey to combat stressors like the hive beetle.

“Extremely low concentrations of hydrogen peroxide in sugar-water fed samples may represent a problem in this common method of hive management,” said McCormick. “Honey bees may selectively regulate higher brood honey hydrogen peroxide as a strategic oxidant defense. Given that brood cells contain honey bee larvae, high honey hydrogen peroxide may help protect against pests.” Indeed, small hive beetle survival is lower with hydrogen peroxide in the honey.

Honey containing hydrogen peroxide has been marketed for its antibacterial, wound healing, and skin care potential; and prescriptions for medical-grade honey are a possibility. New Zealand professor Peter Charles Molan published an interesting historical review on honey for wound healing in 2001. Besides hydrogen peroxide, honey may have healing botanical compounds (phytochemicals). Perhaps the bee’s loss is humankind’s medical gain. Though if the bees are lost as pollinators in the process, it is not a sustainable practice in the longer-term.