Swarms of locusts are seen on a tree in a residential area in the southwestern Pakistan city of Quetta on June 12, 2020.
BANARAS KHAN/AFP via Getty Images
Climate change, globalization and concerns about rat poison soon could drive rat infestations to levels not seen in centuries. One way to curb them is getting humans to stop wasting food.
A tree-killing beetle that invaded South Africa two years ago and wreaked havoc in the country’s towns and cities still hasn’t been declared an emergency plant pest.
Female stable flies make careful choices about where to lay their eggs.
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Savvy female stable flies prefer to lay their eggs on donkey and sheep dung. Knowing where they choose to do this will help us manage disease.
Cities around the world appear to be harboring increasing numbers of rats, including this one: the inflatable ‘Scabby the Rat.’
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Cities often embark upon drastic and expensive eradication campaigns designed to rapidly rid the city of pests like rats. But are the surviving rats stronger or weaker than before?
Learning about urban rat populations through genetic testing reveals information about their movements through cities.
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Genetic analysis shows that urban rats prefer to stay near their relatives; however, some of them migrate. Knowing this could help with pest control efforts.
Rats are part of the urban ecosystem and an urban ecology approach to managing their populations may involve learning to share the city.
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It’s easy to whip out the fly spray, but our fondness for pesticides can bring knock-on effects such as increased resistance, and harming beneficial insects in and around our homes.
Moving beyond pesticides to control the destructive Varroa mite that’s killing honeybees is appealing, but requires more research.
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The Mediterranean fruit fly can evolve rapidly to different environmental conditions, this suggests it will be well suited to cope with climate change.
Lacewings are fantastic predators and are easy to rear and release.
Dan Papacek & Tony Meredith (Bugs for Bugs)
New cane toad traps that carefully imitate mating males successfully target breeding females. Males, meanwhile, will turn up for anything that sounds remotely like a toad.
Releasing just 100 mice carrying a faulty gene designed to stop them reproducing can remove an entire population of 50,000, a new study shows, paving the way for new eradication efforts.
Gene drives could prove useful for controlling mosquitoes which spread diseases like malaria, dengue and zika virus.
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New research has uncovered a whole new way to combat the devastating crown-of-thorns starfish, by decoding the pheromones that they use to communicate.
Public park in Manhattan, home to a rat population with over 100 visible burrows.
Dr. Michael H. Parsons
Rats foul our food, spread disease and damage property, but we know very little about them. A biologist explains how he tracks wild rats in New York City, and what he’s learned about them so far.