America Isn’t Ready for the Lanternfly Invasion
bloomberg.com
bloomberg.com
[1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4001467/
[2] https://www.popsci.com/mosquitoes-designed-self-destruct
The exploding number of pine beatles is commonly attributed to climate change giving the pine beattle a second generation of bugs every year[1]. A genetic control strategy that thinned the population I think would be really helpful at reducing their effect.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mountain_pine_beetle [1] https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2012/03/climate-change-sends...
On the other hand, part of the reason that this kind of thing is so bad is that we fight forest fires so aggressively. In the historic past, as trees are killed off en-masse by the beatles, a forest fire would ravage the area, decimating the beatles population. Because these fires aren't allowed to go unchecked anymore, the beetle population can continue to grow.
If anything, this story supports the precautionary principle. Nice quote from Wikipedia: "Strong precaution holds that regulation is required whenever there is a possible risk to health, safety, or the environment, even if the supporting evidence is speculative and even if the economic costs of regulation are high" [3].
[0] https://www.nrs.fs.fed.us/pubs/jrnl/2006/nc_2006_Poland_003.... [1] https://www.law.cornell.edu/cfr/text/7/319.40-5 [2] https://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/FR-1998-12-17/pdf/98-33444.pdf... [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Precautionary_principle
It inserts a dominant gene that impairs reproduction in future generations and collapses populations.
Funding for this type of research for all kinds of invasives would be helpful, IMO. Certainly seems better and more specific than trying to import predators also, who may end up preferring the local species over the invasive pest species.
https://www.nature.com/news/gene-drive-mosquitoes-engineered...
Having written that first comment: I was merely wondering aloud – without doing a tour du Google myself – whether such genetic intervention would be possible at all.
I cannot see many problems with sterilizing pest animals, as long as we don't define pests so strictly as to include any nuisance. For example, in cities in The Netherlands, feral pigeons are sterilized when population numbers increase too much. The article about the lanternfly also clearly specifies that small populations of lanternflies do not pose a problem. Any intervention would not need to "eradicate" lanternflies from the earth.
Perhaps you are referring to the suggestion of 'improving' the to strategy to produce non-viable offspring.
What is your own opinion on these matters?
The individual bugs may be hapless, but they are obviously just at the beginning of wreaking serious havoc on their new ecosystem and local agriculture.
It was technology that transplanted these populations in the first place. Eons passed without them migrating across the major oceans, then they suddenly hitch a ride on a human conveyance and arrive in a location without their natural predators, and start wreaking havoc on the native populations.
It just seems to me that this targeted technological intervention will solve the problem with the fewest side-effects. Gene-Drive is limited to not only a specific species, but a specific population.
Pesticides kill a broad spectrum of creatures, including many desirable species that are not invasive, such as honeybees.
Biological control, importing other living organisms to depress the population of a pest, can have even more massive spillover effects, some of which were mentioned in TFA, where a wasp that normally predated on the invasive was brought in and promptly preferred to predate on the local species.
So, what's your solution? Just let invasives take over and further trash ecosystems (beyond the existing human damage)?
I get that this is very computationally and scientifically hard, in so many ways. But how good are we at this, at this point? How much harder should we be trying?
Given how critical this is for us to sustain life and adapt to the changing environment, it seems like a no-brainer that we should be pouring vast resources into ecology modeling. Maybe instead of building rockets to "make life interesting" (Musk) or to "build solar panels in space because people can have a right to consume exponentially more energy every year" (Bezos).
You are introducing a new element to an environment without knowing how it would react to it. You could attempt to predict based on predators or food sources from its original environment and compare them to closest matches (if any) to the new environment.
This would make so many wild assumptions though that minor errors could result in cascading effects in a direction the model never predicted.
Doing some googling and found that there is the I = PAT equation which is just for human influence and is based on an extremely simplistic model. I think the nuances and details needed for an accurate ecosystem model would be several orders of magnitude more complex.
A model that could connect events like reintroducing wolves to Yellowstone with stopping erosion and other similar effects would be pretty incredible.
Musk and Bezos are doing worthwhile things. There are plenty of better potential funding sources for new projects.
The supply of talented (as opposed to just "professional") scientists and engineers is quite large and growing all the time. Space exploration, IMNSHO, is just as important as ecology, in the first place. However, there will still be plenty attracted to that discipline.
Believe it or not, the best and brightest are among the most motivated to seek their own interests.
Good example of how celebrities are easier to target than faceless enterprises and realities that do far more harm.
And while we’re building our feel-good kumbaya wishlist, it would be cool if drug cartels solved our lanternfly issue as well.
By the way, looking up the specifics of the Lanternfly - apparently it is skilful in laying eggs so that those survive even cold winters, meaning climate change at most have a moderate effect.
Could you imagine what our ancestors would say if they knew we had the technology to successfully kill a pestilence? It would seem like complete madness. They would think us insane for not using it.
Now, I don't know that there is a downside to genetic modification, but history is littered with unintended consequences.
And I'm unconvinced the "kill 'em all!" approach to dousing everything in insecticide is that much better.
But, it's obviously a very dangerous and powerful tool that should be thoroughly considered. After watching the emerald ash borer devastate my home state I am a but bullish on killing off invasive species.
Did animals adapt to eat them?
The danger is often with cycles that run out of control. In Michigan zebra mussels operate on a multi-year (7 year?) cycle. They'll reach a peak then decline. But each peak so far has been significantly larger than the previous one. They choke out all the mussels that are indigenous to the lakes in those peaks, then decline for a few years and throw entire ecosystems out of whack.
As I read the headline for this post I saw one slowly meandering up my wall. I also began to think about the possibility of this being done intentionally...
You see, the brown marmorated stinkbugs we have are native to asia. They have no natural predators except for a tiny small wasp that parasticies their eggs (also native to asia).
When I was researching them, I thought "What if China intentionally introduced them to the USA as some sort of ecological attack?" That would be some next-level warfare. Or just a really mean prank.
And then this impending laternfly invasion re-piqued my interest in this theory. It turns out that a similar type of parasitic wasp is the natural predator for laternflys too...
Could this really be a coincidence? Could it be a response to the new tariffs? What if they offer to sell us some bio-engineered wasps (a la Monsanto ) to help control our infestations? But the wasps die after a generation, so we have to constantly buy then...
Of course it could still all be coincidence, but it's fun to think about.
Also, as the article points out, you can’t just import the pest’s predator because you may find out that predator much prefers your other species to the one you want to eradicate.
You do have an argument about ecosystem cascades and food chain disruption inveighing against arbitrary extinction of pests, but we should evaluate these things on a case by case basis and not just assume that any species we eradicate is "load bearing". Many species aren't.
Edit: relaxed claims.
They are very large, oblivious to people, and were absolutely everywhere. Several of them landed on my since I probably looked like a small tree in my dark shirt and pants. I don’t know if some predator will come along and balance out the equation, but in the meantime, it certainly did appear to be an invasion.
hmmm. that sounds like it might be an exploitable weakness.
Not just americans talking about the USA. Most of the world. From Britain to Japan, america is used to denote the US and americans to denote citizens from the US.
> What about the people from the rest of the continent?
North Americans ( for US + Canada ). South Americans for people in south america. There are even Central Americans for everyone in between.
In a geographical sense, mexico is also included when people talk about North Americans ( like NAFTA for example ). But from a cultural or general use, north americans primarily mean americans and canadians.
It's simply because "The United States of America" is a mouthful so everyone either uses the last word "America" or shorten it to "USA".
"US" can sometimes be confusing because then you are not sure if people are saying "us" the object pronoun or "us" the country", so "USA" it is.
English-speaking cultures generally agree that there are two continents that lie entirely in the western hemisphere, North America and South America (collectively "the Americas"). In that scheme, "America" without modifier clearly refers to the USA.
Romance-language cultures generally agree that there is only one continent, America. In that scheme, calling the country "America" looks like chauvinism. But it's really just a linguistic difference.
Seems pretty logical to me to put a negative externality tax on these types of imports to cover our losses, but the idea isn't even floated. What am I missing?
BMSB, chestnut blight, camel crickets, asian ladybugs, dutch elm disease, the emerald ash borer, and this lantern fly are just some of the things we have to thank global trade for.
EDIT: Forgot to shout out to the ghetto palm mentioned in the article, which is another introduced species that the lanternfly is attracted to. (It earned its name for thriving on city pollution, it is also likely the fastest growing tree in North America now)
Instead of tariffs, we should be protecting our industries by forcing pest removal on all shipments from overseas. This would be more effective use of the money and properly align the economics and risks of global trade.
The net outcome would be similar.
How well the ones in EU are enforced I don't know. For sure they are not well enforced for individuals arriving to airports - you can just walk straight in with your suitecases. Compared to Australia, which I understand has very strict controls also for individuals arriving.
[1]https://ec.europa.eu/food/plant/plant_health_biosecurity/non... [2]https://www.business.gov.au/products-and-services/importing-...
citrus greening (aka Huanglongbing) has severely damaged citrus groves in Southeast Asia, Latin America, Florida and Texas.
But biodiversity is a huge protective measure against invasive species gaining a foothold in the first place, and habitat destruction is by far the largest short term threat to biodiversity.
My point is that habitat loss is the biggest factor in making these plagues possible at this scale.
Diverse ecosystems are much more likely to be able to adapt relatively quickly to a new species than blighted habitats.
I think its a huge farce to be focusing on "pest control" without getting to the root of the problem, biodiversity. We must be replenishing and rejuvenating biodiversity if we want to have any hope of realistically absorbing invasive species. And biodiversity has to be the focus over conservation. Our ecologies are not history museums. They're dynamically evolving, living superorganisms, and we should care for them appropriately.
In support of this point- dutch elm & EAB would not be the scourges they have been, if we had not so heavily planted elms, and then after they were destroyed, ash. The monoculture of one type of tree, aka lack of diversity, is part of what makes the huge population explosion of the parasites possible.