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Mutualistic... Pests? (CW: bugs!)
Jun. 20th, 2020 12:04 pmPrompted by a comments discussion about the brown spots on my herbs this year, I went out this morning and did a little investigating.
I trimmed off the most affected areas, and while doing so came across this little fellow:
If you look down by my fingers you will see a yellow and black stripped bug, the culprit.
A Google search led me to identify this cheerfully-colored insect as a " four lined plant bug." Apparently when entomologist get lazy, this is what they come up with. It's scientific name is poecilocapsus lineatus. Even Wikipedia doesn't have much to say about it other than, "it is considered a pest." The University of MN's extension office, which pretty much hates to tell people to us pesticide, said, "...go ahead and spray these little f*ckers!" (I MAY be paraphrasing.) Though, they did suggest using organic things, like soap, since, you know you might want to eat some of the non-blighted oregano at some point. Their other advice was, "...come fall, burn it to the ground..." (again, may be a slight paraphrasing, though they do suggest cutting everything way back and composting it.)
While I was out inspecting that, I came across something else in my garden: ants aphid farming.
This is a "mutualistic" relationship that I remember learning about in biology class, but I'm not sure I'd ever seen before in real life (tm).
Image: a photo of ant "cowgirl" tending and herding her aphids on my apple stump/tree
This is something I should probably do something about? But, these ants have set up their aphid farm on a plant that I care only minimally about. It's an apple tree that has self-bonsai'd over the years and is a tiny shrub in the center of our garden. I have considered pulling it up, but the rabbits love to eat the tender apple wood to the ground every winter, so I kind of feel like it fills some ecological niche in my back yard.
I linked to an article about aphid farming by ants, but the gist of it is: the aphids are not entirely willing participants, but they do benefit from ant herding in that the ants will remove sick aphids and otherwise keep away other predators. The aphids, meanwhile, feed an enzyme they produce called 'honeydew' to the ants.
It's a weird, wonderful world in my backyard, my friends.
I trimmed off the most affected areas, and while doing so came across this little fellow:
If you look down by my fingers you will see a yellow and black stripped bug, the culprit.
A Google search led me to identify this cheerfully-colored insect as a " four lined plant bug." Apparently when entomologist get lazy, this is what they come up with. It's scientific name is poecilocapsus lineatus. Even Wikipedia doesn't have much to say about it other than, "it is considered a pest." The University of MN's extension office, which pretty much hates to tell people to us pesticide, said, "...go ahead and spray these little f*ckers!" (I MAY be paraphrasing.) Though, they did suggest using organic things, like soap, since, you know you might want to eat some of the non-blighted oregano at some point. Their other advice was, "...come fall, burn it to the ground..." (again, may be a slight paraphrasing, though they do suggest cutting everything way back and composting it.)
While I was out inspecting that, I came across something else in my garden: ants aphid farming.
This is a "mutualistic" relationship that I remember learning about in biology class, but I'm not sure I'd ever seen before in real life (tm).
Image: a photo of ant "cowgirl" tending and herding her aphids on my apple stump/tree
This is something I should probably do something about? But, these ants have set up their aphid farm on a plant that I care only minimally about. It's an apple tree that has self-bonsai'd over the years and is a tiny shrub in the center of our garden. I have considered pulling it up, but the rabbits love to eat the tender apple wood to the ground every winter, so I kind of feel like it fills some ecological niche in my back yard.
I linked to an article about aphid farming by ants, but the gist of it is: the aphids are not entirely willing participants, but they do benefit from ant herding in that the ants will remove sick aphids and otherwise keep away other predators. The aphids, meanwhile, feed an enzyme they produce called 'honeydew' to the ants.
It's a weird, wonderful world in my backyard, my friends.