This item is one of the news releases and story leads that ARS Information
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From: "ARS News Service"
To: "ARS News List"
Subject: Electric Shock is Bad News for Fire Ants
Date: Fri, Oct 6, 2000, 7:08 AM
STORY LEAD:
Electric Shock is Bad News for Fire Ants
___________________________________________
ARS News Service
Agricultural Research Service, USDA
Tara Weaver-Missick, (301) 504-1619, tmissick@ars.usda.gov
October 6, 2000
___________________________________________
Shocking fire ants with electricity stimulates release of an attractant that
lures ant- attacking Brazilian phorid flies to the ants, according to
Agricultural Research Service scientists. Fire ants infest 300 million acres
in the southern United States. Electric shock won't be an ant-control
measure. But the scientists think the finding might help them speed
laboratory production of flies for outdoor release against the ants.
Phorid flies are natural enemies of red imported fire ants in South America.
ARS scientists brought the flies to this country and released them to help
reduce U.S. fire ant populations. Since that 1997 release, the flies have
survived three winters in Gainesville, Fla., where their numbers and
distribution have expanded rapidly.
Researchers at ARS' Center for Medical, Agricultural and Veterinary
Entomology in Gainesville were looking into why ants are attracted to
electrical devices. The scientists discovered that fire ants walking across
an electrically energized grid release a natural chemical that attracts
phorid flies as well as other fire ants. This chemical draws a six- fold
increase in the number of flies attacking the ants.
Once a parasitic phorid fly locates an ant, it swoops down on the ant,
pierces its body, and deposits an egg inside the ant. The egg hatches into a
larva within a day or two.The larva then moves into the ant's head, causing
the head to fall off. The larva completes its development in the ant's head.
Electrical stimulation helps increase production of parasitized ants in the
laboratory, which in turn increases the number of phorid flies available for
release into fire ant field populations.
The scientists are trying to isolate the specific chemical ants release when
shocked with electricity. This information will help scientists rear phorid
flies in the laboratory, monitor natural fly populations and their
effectiveness in reducing fire ant populations.
ARS is the U.S. Department of Agriculture's principal research agency.
___________________________________________
Scientific contacts: Robert K. Vander Meer and Sanford Porter, Imported Fire
Ant and Household Insects Research Unit, ARS Center for Medical,
Agricultural and Veterinary Entomology, Gainesville, Fla., phone (352)
374-5914, fax (352) 374-5818, bobvm@nervm.nerdc.ufl.edu,
sdp@nervm.nerdc.ufl.edu.
___________________________________________
This item is one of the news releases and story leads that ARS Information
distributes on weekdays to fax and e-mail subscribers. You can also get the
latest ARS news on the World Wide Web at
www.ars.usda.gov/is/pr/thelatest.htm.
* Feedback and questions to ARS News Service via e-mail: isnv@ars-grin.gov.
* ARS Information Staff, 5601 Sunnyside Ave., Room 1-2251, Beltsville MD
20705-5128, (301) 504- 1617, fax (301) 504-1648.
Thanks, Lon. I especially enjoyed the bit about the fire ants' heads
falling off.
Seriously, red imported fire ant is a huge problem in the South and
anything the Government can do to help with it should be done. The
electricity business as a phorid-enhancing tool is new news to me. I will
forward this press release to Homer Collins, APHIS' #1 fire-ant researcher
in Gulfport.
My side of the fence, APHIS, is the USDA agency that cleared ARS to bring
the phorid flies into the country in the first place. Alarmists here on
OGL should be encouraged to learn that foreign insects that might prove to
be pests in the United States are carefully screened and studied in
quarantine, sometimes for *years,* before they are released to scientific
organizations like ARS or universities for research purposes.
The Government has made some serious mistakes about letting potentially
invasive species into the United States in the past (kudzu comes to mind
but is not the only one). APHIS is absolutely no rubber stamp on the
matter either. An APHIS-funded researcher employed by ARS and working on
possible predators and parasites for rangeland grasshoppers was turned down
on his request to import a certain parasitic organism from abroad. It
killed grasshoppers very well, but APHIS scientists in the quarantine wing
of Plant Protection and Quarantine were not convinced it could be counted
on to remain at sub-pest levels once it was loosed in our country. No
permit, no importation--just that simple.
--Janet
