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The Strategic Agenda, which defines the EU’s priorities for the 2024-2029 mandate and provides guidance for the Brussels-based institutions, will be adopted by the 27 heads of state and government during the European Council meeting of 27-28 June. [EPA/OLIVIER HOSLET]
EU leaders are expected to put food security at the heart of the bloc’s agricultural policy for the next five years, according to a leaked draft of the EU’s Strategic Agenda seen by Euractiv.
The programme defines Europe’s priorities for the 2024-2029 mandate, providing guidance to the EU institutions, and will be adopted by the 27 heads of state and government during the European Council meeting on 27-28 June.
The internal document, created on 27 March, predates the most recent exchanges between the EU leaders, and points to food security as a key priority for a “prosperous and competitive Europe,” despite the issue hardly being discussed at EU summits in recent years.
“Ensure our food security through a vibrant agriculture sector,” reads one of the bullet points of the draft outline.
The two-page text does not explicitly reference the sustainability of the agricultural sector or the protection of the environment, even though it prioritises “preparing for the new realities stemming from climate change.”
From sustainability to security
This initial draft marks a departure from the 2019 priorities, which included “promoting sustainable agriculture” and “calling on all EU countries to move forward and step up their climate action”.
In response to widespread farmer protests across the EU, the European Commission has already shelved or backtracked some of its plans to improve the sustainability of the farming sector in recent months.
Faustine Bas-Defossez, director for health, nature, and environment at the European Environmental Bureau (EEB), described the absence of sustainable agriculture in the leaked 2024 agenda as “deeply troubling”.
“By prioritising’ food security’ over sustainability in agriculture, EU leaders are ignoring the reality that climate change and natural disasters pose the greatest threats to our food security,” she warned.
A study commissioned by the European Parliament’s Agricultural Committee found that while food availability in the EU “is not generally considered to be at risk,” the bloc relies too heavily on imports from a reduced group of suppliers for animal feed and fertilisers.
According to the report, those dependencies, exacerbated by an uncertain geopolitical situation and climate change, could threaten the long-term resilience of the EU food system.
The study however also found that sustainable farming practices, such as organic agriculture and the promotion of lower consumption of animal products, could decrease the bloc’s need for imports.
The EU remains heavily reliant on animal feed and fertilisers imports from outside the bloc, as highlighted in a recent study commissioned by the European Parliament’s Agriculture Committee (AGRI).
Super-propulsion: how sharpshooting insects flick their pee
Nature
High-speed cameras reveal tiny insects employing a physical phenomenon, never-before seen in a natural system to avoid drowning in their own urine
Sharpshooters are tiny insects capable of extraordinary feats. They feed on xylem fluid which is about 95% water and as a result they produce a lot of urine which they need to expel, and they do so using some pretty nifty physics called super propulsion. By taking advantage of the unique properties of water at this scale, sharpshooters can flick droplets of urine away from their bodies at speeds faster than they can move, saving energy and allowing them to keep feeding. This is the first time super propulsion has been seen in a natural system and researchers say it could provide inspiration for new ways to keep tech dry.
Plants that survived dinosaur extinction pulled nitrogen from air
ScienceDaily
Nitrogen fixing bacteria may have helped some cycads survive to the present day
Source:
Duke University
Summary:
Ancient cycad lineages that survived the extinction of the dinosaurs may have done so by relying on symbiotic bacteria in their roots to fix atmospheric nitrogen. The finding came from an effort to understand ancient atmospheres, but became an insight into plant evolution instead.
Once a favored food of grazing dinosaurs, an ancient lineage of plants called cycads helped sustain these and other prehistoric animals during the Mesozoic Era, starting 252 million years ago, by being plentiful in the forest understory. Today, just a few species of the palm-like plants survive in tropical and subtropical habitats.
Like their lumbering grazers, most cycads have gone extinct.
Pitcher plants in the genus Nepenthes thrive in places where they shouldn’t. There’s very little nitrogen in the Southeast Asian and Australian soils where they grow—but they do just fine, thanks to a macabre source for this essential nutrient: the dissolved flesh of small animals, mostly insects, that slip into their bulbous traps.
A new study suggests why Nepenthes is so effective at catching its victims: It produces a sweet nectar containing a potent neurotoxin that could make them lose their balance at the pitcher’s edge. The work, published as a preprint on bioRxiv this month, is the first known example of nectar acting both as a lure and a poison.
The finding is intriguing, says University of Bristol researcher Ulrike Bauer, who has studied Nepenthes plants for nearly 2 decades but who wasn’t involved with the research. “The nectar has really been neglected for a long time,” she says, and the idea that it contains compounds that “drug” insects is plausible. Still, she and others would like clearer evidence that the toxin originates from the nectar—and that it really accounts for the unlucky ants’ falls.
Phytochemist Sabulal Baby has been studying carnivorous plants—“the most unique life forms on Earth,” he says—for more than a decade. He and his colleagues at the Jawaharlal Nehru Tropical Botanic Garden and Research Institute had previously discovered that the rims of the Indian pitcher plant Nepenthes khasianaare fluorescent and that newly opened traps emit carbon dioxide—features that attract insects. Because they knew the plants also produce nectar on and around their traps, which acts as a lure, they decided to examine it more closely.
In other plants, such extrafloral nectar isn’t designed to harm insects. The liquid’s high sugar content appeals to ants, whose presence—and aggression—wards off potential herbivores. But when Baby and colleagues teased out the contents of the nectars of N. khasiana and several other pitcher plants growing in their institute’s botanic garden, they found something unexpected. The nectars contained (+)–isoshinanolone—a compound that interferes with the activity of an enzyme called acetylcholinesterase, which prevents the buildup of the neurotransmitter acetylcholine between neurons. Too much acetylcholine in lab animals leads to muscle cramps, weakness, blurry vision, and paralysis.
And indeed when Baby and his colleagues examined ants that had drowned in the pitcher fluid of N. khasiana, they found almost no acetylcholinesterase activity in their tissues. Ants collected on the plant’s exterior showed more of this activity. This indicates that the nectar inhibits the insects’ locomotion, Baby says, making them temporarily clumsy and more likely to tumble into a pitcher. The nectar is a “toxic bait,” he says. “Prey capture by these pitchers is a story of total deception.”
Bauer doesn’t agree that the relationship is that unbalanced. The nectar isn’t so potent that the plants catch every ant that imbibes; many of the insects are able to shrug off its effects and make it home to deliver the sweet treat. “Sugar is an important food resource for ants, because it’s very energy dense,” Bauer notes. Meanwhile, worker ants are relatively expendable. “It’s a good deal for the ant colony to sacrifice some workers, as long as the workers that survive bring in enough sugar to offset that loss.”
It wouldn’t be completely unheard of for nectar to manipulate insects to the plant’s benefit, says Martin Heil, an expert on ant-plant interactions and extrafloral nectar with the Mexican Center for Research and Advanced Studies of the National Polytechnic Institute.
That said, he finds the data provided—that drowned ants exhibited high levels of acetylcholinesterase inhibition—are circumstantial at best. He would like to see experiments examining live ants before and after consuming the nectar to be convinced that the fluid has a real impact on prey capture.
Bauer says that in her work, she hasn’t seen ants with impaired movement after drinking pitcher plant nectar, though others have, and she notes the effect need not be dramatic to benefit the plant. She also hasn’t worked with N. khasiana specifically, and nectar components vary between species—a fact she can personally confirm from tasting the nectars of several pitcher plants.
Bauer notes that the authors’ method for nectar sampling—which involved rinsing cut sections of plant to collect the fluid—could have introduced intracellular compounds. So future work should confirm that (+)–isoshinanolone is in the nectar that the ants consume, not just the plant’s tissues.
Still, she wouldn’t be too surprised if it is. Pitcher plants have “such an amazing diversity of tricks for how to trap insects” that toxic nectar would hardly be the strangest.
he increasing volume of insect photo observations shared on iNaturalist and similar sites can no longer be ignored, and entomologists are finding ways to use it. A review in Annals of the Entomological Society of America digs into best practices for bolstering entomological research with this growing body of citizen-science data. Among various findings, the researchers note an over-representation among online photo sharing of butterflies and moths (order Lepidoptera) and of arthropods from the Northern Hemisphere, particularly North America—such as this image of a viceroy butterfly (Limenitis archippus) taken in Benton County, Washington, USA. (Photo by Lisa Hill via iNaturalist, CC BY-NC 4.0)
By Grant Bolton, Ph.D.
Grant Bolton, Ph.D.
With a smartphone in so many pockets, everyone is taking pictures of the world and sharing them online. Believe it or not, in 2022 alone, there were 1.72 trillion photos taken, and 92.5 percent of those pictures were taken with a mobile phone!
But, what does that have to do with entomology?
If you’ve ever declared yourself a professional or amateur entomologist, then you know that people love sharing blurry pictures of insects with you, hoping for a quick ID. Instead of hunting down your local entomologist, for naturalists and nature-loving hobbyists, dozens of apps and websites now allow people to share pictures of plants and animals and get accurate identification from experts and enthusiasts.
Some of the most popular platforms and apps in the U.S. include iNaturalist and BugGuide, but there are many options internationally as well
In a research review published in August in the Annals of the Entomological Society of America, entomologists Michael Skvarla, Ph.D., and Ray Fisher, Ph.D., reviewed the impact that photo-sharing platforms have on the entomology community and some of the best practices for using the plethora of data out there to supplement different areas of study.
Skvarla, an assistant research professor of arthropod identification at Penn State University, and Fisher, a research associate at Mississippi State University and the Mississippi Entomological Museum, reviewed 2,123 entomology-based publications that used community photographs and metadata from 77 online photo-sharing portals, including community science apps, social media, and media-sharing sites.
“I use BugGuide and iNaturalist a lot for IDs and personal use,” Skvarla says. “I tried using that photo data in publications and got pushback from editors years ago. However, I started getting less of that pushback recently, and it was becoming more accepted in the scientific literature. I figured it was time to do a review on it.”
What Skvarla and Fisher found was that there has been an exponential growth in the number of publications that used community photos since 2006, with iNaturalist seeing a majority of that growth. With access to this body of citizen-science observations, researchers can potentially expand their pool of data and design studies to answer new questions about insects.
The number of entomological research publications that use community-derived photograph data every year is growing rapidly. Chart A shows the total number of publications per year, and chart B shows the number of publications per year for the five most-used websites. (BG: BugGuide; BV: Biodiversidad Virtual; iNat: iNaturalist; LF: Lepiforum; OIF: Observation International Foundation. (Figures originally published in Skvarla and Fisher 2023, Annals of the Entomological Society of America)
However, using this data does have its limitations. Skvarla and Fisher show in their study that clear biases exist when it comes to which insects are represented in these photos.
“A lot of the papers out there that use citizen-science data focus on big, showy insects,” Skvarla says, “because those are the ones that are most photographed or most easily identifiable. But this does show that there are gaps in the citizen science data that we can address and projects can be built around.”
Additionally, most of these publications used data that represent species from the Palearctic and Nearctic regions—in other words, primarily the northern hemisphere. That can limit the scope of certain research projects that want to focus on the diversity and population distributions of certain insect groups. But, with countries and communities in the tropics and southern hemisphere adopting and using more of this technology, there is tremendous potential for expanding the data to include a greater diversity of insects in those regions.
A clear bias exists in the origin of photos shared on online citizen-science observation websites such as iNaturalist, with greater representation of species from the Palearctic and Nearctic regions—in other words, primarily the northern hemisphere. This map charts the number of publications that used community-derived photographic data per country, as found in a review of 2,123 entomology-based publications that used community photographs and metadata from 77 online photo-sharing portals. (Figure originally published in Skvarla and Fisher 2023, Annals of the Entomological Society of America)
Much of the data on these photo-sharing platforms is being used in distinct categories, including:
behavior, ecology, and natural history
color patterns
host plant ID
new genera and species
identification
rediscoveries.
And that’s just using the photographs themselves. Beyond that, metadata from these sites (i.e., the info that accompanies every picture, such as location, timestamps, etc.) can be used to study:
distribution
monitoring and surveillance
abundance
changes in species richness
habitat, distribution, niche, and occupancy modeling
population modeling
and more.
With a little creativity and out-of-the-box thinking, researchers can use these underutilized data and information to explore and explain these patterns and trends in entomology.
So, what are some things researchers should keep in mind when considering community photo data?
These platforms offer a huge source of information, but researchers need to use it with caveats and understand the pitfalls of the platform. An example Skvarla and Fisher share in their review demonstrates this bias. A study reported a substantial increase in photographs of monarch butterflies on the west coast of California and a mistaken correlation with “unprecedented breeding activity” among the population. However, in the same time period, there was an exponential increase in monarch butterfly submissions on iNaturalist.
Additionally, researchers should consider “trends in photo-sharing, biases in when and where photographs are taken, and accuracy of identifications” when using photo-sharing data.
In sum, Skvarla and Fisher conclude that, while this data can be unstructured and prone to bias, there are opportunities to use community-generated data to supplement and reinforce future publications.
And for those getting started with photo-sharing platforms, it’s a great way to better understand the flora and fauna near you.
“If you’re interested in learning more about the world around you and want to know what’s out there, start taking pictures of what you see,” Skvarla says. “I’ve learned about what I have growing in my yard and in the woods because I take photos of them and put them on iNaturalist. Then people identify them for me. And don’t forget to take good-quality photos. Blurry ones don’t help as much.”
Burleigh Dodds Science Publishing are delighted to announce the publication of their new title, Understanding and minimising fungicide resistance, edited by Dr Francisco J. Lopez-Ruiz, Curtin University, Australia.
The emergence of fungicide resistance is a major challenge facing agriculture. With increasing regulation and costs limiting the development of new fungicides, farmers remain reliant on a relatively small group of working fungicides, many of which are decreasingly effective as major crop disease pathogens develop resistance to them.
The book provides an authoritative review on the wealth of research on understanding the development of fungicide resistance in agricultural crops and the establishment of preventative measures which can be implemented to limit its spread and the consequent impact of disease on yields.
This collection includes ways of understanding and preventing resistance to key groups of fungicides, such as SBI, Qol, SDHI and OSBPI.
Time flies and it is time to save the date for the 23rd Fusarium Laboratory Workshop.
This version of the workshop is scheduled from June 23-28, 2024 and will be held in the Plant Pathology Department at Kansas State University.
We expect registration and housing fees to be slightly higher than two years ago. We will again offer a limited number of fee reductions on a first-come first-served basis for students and for scientists from developing countries.
More details on registration will be circulated to this listserv after the 1st of the year.
If there are others you know who might not have received this message, please feel free to share it with them. If you received this message from a friend or colleague, please let me know and I will add your name to the list for future mailings.
Feel free to contact me with questions and I will look for answers.
We look forward to welcoming you and/or your colleagues to the Little Apple early next summer as we push the number of participants from over the years past the total of 750 from 78 different countries!
By Dusty Sonnenberg, CCA, Field Leader, a project of the Ohio Soybean Council and Soybean Check-off
In his years studying soils, Adam Daugherty, NRCS District Conservationist, Coffee County Tennessee, has come to the conclusion that soils have latent potential just waiting to be developed and manifest. “We don’t just want to conserve our soils when we can restore and help improve them,” said Daugherty. “The rejuvenation of your soil does not start with the implementation of principles, but rather the commitment to understanding ecological functions. You need to know why before how. The ingredients include the sun, soil, plants, and you.”
Daugherty believes that while no-till production is a good step, the implementation of no-till practices alone will not rejuvenate the soil. “Biologically, no-till was bacteria dominated. That biology is presently out of balance, and in many places the overall ecosystem functions are low,” said Daugherty. “Minus a lot of erosion and a little diesel, no-till production has mirrored conventional tillage. In the bigger picture, the logistics of soil rejuvenation and feeding the global population are not going to be met with a 15’ no-till drill.”
“There is the potential in a rejuvenated, healthy, functioning soil health management system to make money, clean the water, and restore resources,” said Daugherty.
The potential of the soil resource and its resiliency depend on five things, including moisture, temperature, pests, structure and the organic nutrient pool. To help reach that potential, Daugherty suggests keeping the soil covered. He likens it to a house that must be protected. He also suggests having living plants capturing sunlight and driving soil functions. “Having plant diversity creates synergistic collaborations within the soil biology,” said Daugherty. “It takes moisture to manage moisture. We cannot manage precipitation, only evaporation. There are more days with the potential to lose moisture than there are to gain moisture. Keeping the soil covered helps to manage moisture.”
Living crops allow for the management of moisture. “Why would we pray for rain if we have not prepared a place for it to fall,” asked Daugherty. “Fallow ground does not mimic any natural principle.” Having a growing crop breaks up rain drops as they fall, both slowing the speed and allowing the smaller droplets to infiltrate rather than run off. Plants also capture energy from sunlight and shade the soil to reduce evaporation and erosion.
“Bare soil creates energy imbalances,” said Daugherty. “We waste money in the space between plants. Plant biomass shades the soil and helps moderate the soil temperature. Soil temperature is important to microbial life.”
“The sun is the energy source that is captured by the plants. To rejuvenate the soil we need a diversity of plants.”
“Soil health is not complicated. Anytime there is not a living plant, the soil is degrading. We need to capture the energy from the sun to drive the system,” said Daugherty. “Nature wants to stabilize the carbon to nitrogen ratio in the soil. We farm in a high C:N ratio. The soil is naturally designed for consumption and the flow of energy.”
Caterpillars with a notoriously painful sting may have evolved their venom with help from ancient microbes, according to a new study led by scientists from the University of Queensland in Australia.
Their analysis has uncovered signs that a process known as horizontal gene transfer may have allowed sequences for toxins to jump from bacteria to the insect some time in their evolutionary past.
While the caterpillar’s venom remains largely shrouded in mystery, researchers say its molecular secrets could turn out to be surprisingly beneficial for us.
The caterpillars wielding this venom are larvae of flannel moths (Megalopyge sp.); a soft, fuzzy genus native to North and South America. They’re sometimes called “puss caterpillars,” since their luxuriant coats of hairlike bristles can make them look sort of like caterpillar-sized cats.
But that’s not their only nickname. Also known as “asp caterpillars,” there’s a hidden danger below those bristles.
The caterpillars’ fur obscures an arsenal of venomous spines, which can inject powerful toxins into any would-be predators or hapless humans who touch them.
This venom causes an immediate and intense burning pain, commonly inspiring descriptions such as “being hit with a baseball bat,” “walking on hot coals,” or “the worst pain a patient has ever experienced,” the researchers write.
Some animal venoms have provenuseful to humans in recent years, and a growing field of research now views them as potential goldmines. Certain snake and spider venoms, for example, show “amazing potential” to inspire new medications, the study’s authors say.
And since caterpillar venoms have received relatively little scientific attention so far, the researchers decided to investigate venom from some of the scariest caterpillars on Earth.
Their study focused on two moth species – the southern flannel moth (Megalopyge opercularis) and the black-waved flannel moth (Megalopyge crispata) – to shed light on the anatomy, chemistry, and mode of action for venom systems in asp caterpillars.
They discovered a venom system that differed substantially not only from closely related venomous caterpillars, but also from insects in general.
“We were surprised to find asp caterpillar venom was completely different to anything we had seen before in insects,” says University of Queensland molecular entomologist Andrew Walker.
The quirks of asp caterpillar venom support the idea it evolved independently from other insect venom, the researchers say. In fact, its origins seem to lie outside the animal kingdom entirely.
“When we looked at it more closely, we saw proteins that were very similar to some of the bacterial toxins that make you sick,” Walker says.
Specifically, asp caterpillar venom resembles a type of bacterial toxin that binds itself to the surface of a cell, the researchers explain, assembling into doughnut-like structures that rip holes in their cell target.
While organisms normally pass genes down their offspring in a so-called vertical fashion, sometimes genes can be transferred across between species – even distantly related ones – in a less common horizontal process.
Previous research has found evidence of horizontal gene transfer from bacteria to other, more complex creatures, including the transfer of genes involved with producing venom toxins.
In their new study, Walker and his colleagues say they’ve found evidence that major components of asp caterpillar venom were recruited as venom toxins from genes that bacteria transferred horizontally to their ancestors.
An adult flannel moth. (Robert Aguilar/Smithsonian Environmental Research Center/Flickr/CC BY 2.0)
“The venom in these caterpillars has evolved via the transfer of genes from bacteria more than 400 million years ago,” Walker says.
Moths and butterflies have a wide range of strategies to protect themselves in their larval stages, and research like this can offer new insights into these amazing adaptations – including the different ways they arose and evolved.
“Many caterpillars have developed sophisticated defenses against predators, including cyanide droplets and defensive glues that cause severe pain, and we’re interested to understand how they are all related,” Walker says.
In addition to sheer curiosity, humans are also studying these caterpillars in hopes of finding some tangible rewards for our species. Understanding venom can help us protect ourselves from it, and can give us new ideas for developing or improving things like medications and pesticides.
In asp caterpillar venom, the newly identified megalysin toxins cause intense pain by forming holes in cells. If humans can mimic and modify this tactic, we might find ways to channel 400 million years of moth evolution into life-saving innovations instead of just painful stings.
“Toxins that puncture holes in cells have particular potential in drug delivery because of their ability to enter cells,” Walker says.
“There may be a way to engineer the molecule to target beneficial drugs to healthy cells, or to selectively kill cancer cells.”
Confocal microscope image of a switchgrass root (colored in blue) colonized by fluorescently labeled bacteria (in yellow and orange). Credit: Joseph Edwards, University of Texas at Austin
Plants provide a home for a wide diversity of microbes, especially in their roots. In turn, these communities can provide important benefits for the host. A study published in Current Biology investigated how the genetics of host plants determine the composition of the bacterial communities associated with the plants’ roots. The study identified a core set of bacterial strains that colonize switchgrass roots.
Many of these bacteria differ in abundance across plants’ genotypes. The study then mapped genes in the host genome that appear to affect the abundance of these microbes. This mapping revealed that genes involved in host immunity, plant development, and hormone signaling have roles in how plants acquire their microbiome.
Plants rely on their microbiomes to perform vital functions. Researchers seek to breed plant varieties to increase the beneficial associations with bacteria. However, scientists have limited knowledge of the extent to which host genetics affect the composition of the microbiome.
This study found that the genotype of a host switchgrass plant affects a large portion of the plant’s microbiome. The study also identified the switchgrass genes that appear to influence the abundance of these microbes. These results may help to engineer or breed plant varieties that form stronger beneficial associations with their microbiomes.
Plant-associated microbiota can contribute significantly to plant growth and yield. How host genetic variation affects the root-microbiome assembly is an open question. In this study, researchers used a common garden approach with field sites in Texas, Missouri, and Michigan to uncover the composition of the switchgrass root microbiome, characterize the effect of environment vs. host genetics on the composition of the root microbiome, and identify putative loci in the host genome implicated the differential microbiome composition. The team included scientists from the University of Texas at Austin, the HudsonAlpha Institute for Biotechnology, the Joint Genome Institute at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, the University of Missouri, and Michigan State University.
Through sequencing efforts at the Joint Genome Institute, the researchers found that switchgrass root microbiota composition is largely site dependent. Nevertheless, there is a conserved set of core bacteria found in high abundance on roots across sites. Most of these core microbes differ in abundance between host genotypes in an environmentally dependent manner.
Finally, the researchers used a genome wide association study (GWAS) framework to identify loci in the host genome associated with the differing abundance of these microbes. Variation in genes implicated in plant immunity, development, and signaling were associated with microbiome compositional differences. These results provide a deeper understanding of the mechanisms plants use to modify their microbiota and give an avenue for breeding host plants to tailor their microbiome.
More information: Joseph A. Edwards et al, Genetic determinants of switchgrass-root-associated microbiota in field sites spanning its natural range, Current Biology (2023). DOI: 10.1016/j.cub.2023.03.078
Asp caterpillars are among the most venomous caterpillars in the Americas. 
Global Plant Protection News 