Author: Allen (Page 3 of 5)

HEREDITY OF BODY COLOR IN DROSOPHILA
T. H. MORGAN, 1912 Journal of Experimental Zoology
PLATE 1
EXPLANATION OF FIGURES
1. A normal female
2 A black female.
3 A brown female.
4 A yellow female.
Normal or gray female (the outer marginal vein is slightly exaggerated in
the figure).
The contrast between the black, yellow, and brown flies
is well brought out in the figures

These beautiful and historic drawings are from an early paper by the famous geneticist Thomas Hunt Morgan.  The many papers that he published helped establish modern-day genetics (not just insect genetics but ALL genetics).  These works and the other 150,000 papers on the various aspects of Drosophila genetics would not have been possible if it were not for the pioneering work of Delcourt, Baumberger, Guyenot, and other rearing pioneers.

Baumberger, J. P.  1917a. The food of Drosophila melanogaster Meigen.  Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America: 3: 122-126.

Baumberger, J.P.  1917b. Solid media for rearing Drosophila.  American Naturalist.  51: 447-448.

Delcourt, A. and E. Guyenot. 1910. The possibility of studying certain Diptera in a defined environment. Comptes rendus hebdomadaires des séances de l’Académie des sciences (0001-4036), 151, p. 255-257.

Guyenot, E.  1913a. A biological study of a Drosophila ampelophila Low fly I – The possibility of an aseptic life for an individual and the line.  Comptes rendus des séances de la Société de biologie et de ses filiales (0037-9026), 74, p. 97-99.

In the previous post (Nov. 26), I brought up the subject of insect rearing infrastructure, and I showed a sterling example of a rearing system that has served the world well: the Pink Bollworm Rearing System: run by the USDA, APHIS in Phoenix, AZ (USA).  I showed a picture of the “pinkie” diet that was being mass-produced in a huge, industrial scale twin screw extruder.  Although the process is now practiced routinely by the highly skilled professionals at the Pinkie facility, the ideas and techniques behind this smooth operation did not “like Athena spring full-blown from the head of Zeus.”  There was an evolution of the process that serves today to produce up to 25,000,000 pinkie adults per day for sterile release.

So here is the pink bollworm system running at very high efficiency.  But how did it get that way?  What incremental steps went into the rearing system: the diet, the environmental conditions, the containers, the sanitation procedures, the genetic management of a highly domesticated insect, etc.?

Let’s take the diet as an example of the evolution of a mass-rearing system.  The above table is from a paper by Edwards et al.  (1996) cited below.  The Edwards paper describes how the twin screw extruder became incorporated into the mass-rearing system (another huge and important series of steps), but the formulation of the diet itself came from a complex of incremental processes, all of which had to be vetted.  Looking at the components, we see for example toasted soy flour, wheat germ, and agar.  Each of these components has a special role in the diet, nutrition, feeding stimulation, antimicrobial function, texture, stabilization, etc.  But where did the idea of soy flour come from?  It turns out that tracking soy flour (and other soy products) in insect diets requires some complex detective work (which I will discuss in another post).  However, it appears that soy products were first used by Japanese researchers who were trying to develop artificial diets for silkworms to reduce dependence on fresh mulberry leaves (please see my other posts on silkworms).  The soy/ silkworm papers began to appear in the early 1960s, and later in the ’60s other papers appeared where soy components were reported by Western researchers on insect diets.  I will treat the background in soy in insect diets in another post dedicated to this special topic.

Wheat germ is another component that is prominent in the pinkie diet and in diets for hundreds of other insect species. I have treated the history of wheat germ in my text, especially in the 2nd edition, and I will discuss it on a special topics page in a later blog, but for now let me point out that wheat germ made an inauspicious debut in 1959 and then a much greater impact study reported in 1960 (please see Vanderzant et al. 1959 and Adkisson 1960) .  Once the vast potential of wheat germ became recognized it has been of central importance in thousands of published studies where the insects could not have been available were it not for the excellence of what germ as a diet component.

The last item that I will mention here is agar.  It seems that agar has been around forever in insect diets, but it actually became a centerpiece of insect diets starting with a Drosophila paper by Baumberger (1917) and Baumberger and Glaser 1917.  Prior to 1917, media were being developed for Drosophila based on bananas and yeast, but the Baumberger laboratory borrowed from the then burgeoning programs in microbiology where agar was becoming a standard of many kinds of microbial media.  The advent of agar in insect diets revolutionized the potential for rearing hundreds of species of insects, yet the Baumberger and Baumberger and Glaser papers are cited only a total of 2 times since 1917!  This lack of citation and lack of recognition of some of the most influential achievements in insect rearing is a central topic of many of my writings and teachings.

Finally, the story of many of the other innovations and advancements is told remarkably well by Stewart (1984).  Again, I will treat the pinkie story in more detail in near future pages, but for now please understand my point about how much incremental progress must take place and should be recognized in the insect rearing systems upon which so much depends!

References Cited Here:

Adkisson, P. L., E. S. Vanderzant, D. L. Bull, and W. E. Allison.  1960b. A wheat germ medium for rearing the pink bollworm.  J. Econ. Entomol.  53: 759-762.

Baumberger, J.P.  1917. Solid media for rearing Drosophila.  American Naturalist.  51: 447-448.

Baumberger, J.P. and R. W. Glaser.  1917.  The Rearing of Drosophila Ampelophila Loew on Solid Media. Science.  45: pp. 21-22.

Edwards, R. H., E. Miller, R. Becker, A. P. Mossman, and D. W. Irving.  1996.  Twin screw extrusion processing of diet for mass rearing the pink bollworm.  Transactions of the American Society of Agricultural Engineering.  39 (5): 1789-1797.

Stewart, F. D.  1984.  Mass Rearing the Pink Bollworm, Pectinophora gossypiella.  In Advances and Challenges in Insect Rearing.  E.G. King and N.C. Leppla, Eds.  USDA, ARS.  Pp. 176-187. New Orleans, LA.

Vanderzant, E. S., C. D. Richardson, and T. B. Davich.  1959. Feeding and Oviposition by the Boll Weevil on Artificial Diets.  J. Econ. Entomol.  52: 1138-1142.

I am currently writing a paper on infrastructure of insect rearing.  On this WeRearInsects.com site, I have already begun some of my discussion about rearing infrastructure and what our rearing profession needs to improve infrastructure.

One of the prominent examples of large scale and HIGHLY successful insect rearing is to be found in the various USDA, APHIS facilities, including the Pink Bollworm Rearing Facility in Phoenix, Arizona.

The photos in this post are from the Phoenix facility, currently directed by Eoin Davis, and previously directed by Ernie Miller and prior to that Dr. Fred Stewart.  The photos were provided by Dr. Hannah Nadel, a supervisory entomologist with USDA, APHIS.  These photos depict just a few features of the incredible mass-rearing system that is used by the staff of the USDA facility to produce millions of pink bollworms to be used for sterile insect technique (SIT) and other functions to help control these most devastating cotton pests.  The top left photo shows the adult rearing containers with PVC tubes collecting the scales, and the tops of the cages lined with paper for egg collection.  The top right photo shows the eggs being dried out after being treated with anti-microbial treatments, and the bottom photo shows the diet production where freshly made diet (diet with a red/pink dye to mark insects from the APHIS facility).  One of this laboratory innovations is the application of food science technology where the large twin-screw extruder is used to make large quantities of highest quality diet economically and safely.

This system is one of many USDA, APHIS facilities that deserves recognition and understanding by the rearing community, the entomological community, and the public at large, who are so well-served by these kinds of mass-rearing programs.  Thanks to these programs (including the sterile screwworm program, and several fruit fly control programs), billions of taxpayer dollars are saved, and our world is cleaner, and our agriculture is more efficient!

I have mentioned elsewhere on this site, that the purpose of the website, WeRearInsects.com, is to advance insect rearing through raising awareness of all rearing issues.  I have strived for the past 4 decades to contribute to science and entomology by doing research and teaching in insect rearing, and besides my writing books and book chapters, and papers, and besides my providing insect rearing workshops, and teaching classes online and in person, I have chosen to write a website to give myself the latitude to provide my ideas and the ideas of others all for the advancement of insect rearing and the people who practice this discipline.

However, I feel the need to express some thoughts and ideas regarding my site in the context of the site’s not being a peer-reviewed construct.

After the recent elections in the US, issues of truth, validity, and facts have come into the forefront more than ever before.  There have been many cases of fake news.  In fact, those of us who teach, have warned students for a long time that they need to be careful about “facts” from online inquiries.  I use the Internet many times per day to get a take on various subjects.  I have found that with subjects of which I have a base of knowledge, sometimes the information is excellent, and sometimes, it’s very inaccurate and can be misleading.  Therefore, my warning to students is that they use their greatest resource for getting an accurate (truthful?) picture is to use critical thinking and multiple source inquiries.  Part of the critical thinking that I urge is asking the question, “who is providing the information?” and “what does the information provider have to gain?”  Along with these critical thinking questions, if the student/scholar wants to add a layer of protection (a “truthfulness coating”), she or he can do some comparisons from various sources.  Often, however, the comparisons lead to the phenomenon where multiple sources say the exact same thing.  This parroting of information may well be a sign that the information should be further questioned, rather than being taken at face value.

So now, all this being said, what about the information that readers find on my website, which you are now visiting?  I have cautioned readers that this site presents my perspectives about insect rearing and related issues.  As much as I try to always be objective in my teaching, my scientific research, my reviewing other people’s works, and all other ways that I deal with insect rearing, I am still human and am bound to have slants or biases in the information and explanations that I present.  When I am writing papers or funding applications, I have reviewers who are scientific experts, and they can do some of the vetting.  Then, once the works are published, the scientific community can come along with criticism and commentary, especially if they have tested the information that I am providing.  This is why peer-reviewed works are given so much importance in the scientific community, especially where people are applying for funds, for jobs, or for promotions.

In the context of openness, I always encourage readers to offer opinions and to ask for clarification of my points.  However, to keep the site free of distractions, such as commercial messages or opinions that do not provide constructive substance to the ideas and information that I am putting forward, I screen the comments and questions, and I post all the ones that help what is in my opinion the advancement of insect rearing.

So please read my pages and posts critically, and give me feedback about what is helpful, what is incorrect, and what needs clarification.

Signed photo of E. F. Knipling who was honored by USDA, ARS in an article in Agricultural Research Magazine

One of the most heralded programs in entomology, possibly in science as a whole is the sterile insect technique (SIT) for suppressing or eradicating screwworms.  I present here a little background on the connection between insect rearing and application of SIT.  I start with a quotation from E. F. Knipling, who had long been a supporter of insect rearing as a science that supported other insect management programs such as SIT and biological control (unknown to more casual observers, Dr. Knipling was a GREAT supporter of biological control, including augmentation.  He wrote a book on the efficacy and possibilities of biological control by parasites, and he included predators and augmentation of both predators and parasitoids as an important potential for pest management on an area-wide basis.  He wrote:

“Mass rearing of insects is still a young science. With the help of insect geneticists, insect nutritionists, and insect behaviorists, insects might be reared under conditions that will make them equally, if not more, vigorous and more adaptable to the environment than the wild population. These improvements are likely to occur after further experiences and research.”  E. F. Knipling 1979

In the 2016 ESA National Meeting, Dr. Knipling’s work (for example, see the quotation from the ESA Newsletter announcement of Dr. James’ lecture*).  I have used in a paper that I wrote for American Entomologist the quotation from E. F. Knipling’s 1979 chapter to fortify my discussion of the pivotal role of insect rearing in entomological programs.  The quote reflects Dr. Knipling’s recognition of rearing as a science and that with the right kinds of input can lead to production of better quality insects that are more available for various programs.  It is also clear that Dr. Knipling had the vision that further “experiences and research” were needed to improve rearing science.

But for the current blog page, I wanted to fortify the point about basic science, in general.  I have cited a recent paper in Animal Behaviour (by Brennen, Clark, and Mock 2014) about the importance of basic science.  The authors clearly convey that basic science is of value far beyond the immediate scope or vision that most of us have initially. Brennen et al. cite the widely discussed treatment of Dr. Knipling’s work on screwworms, where Knipling was “awarded” a Golden Fleece Award for his having been funded for $250,000 to study on “The Sexual Behaviour of the Screwworm Fly,”  It has become a near-legendary example of near-sightedness by politicians like Senator Proxmire (D-Wisconsin from 1957-1989) that Knipling’s funding to study the mating behavior of screwworms, which was the foundation of SIT: that a female fly mates once, while males (including sterile males) mate multiple times.  Brennen et al. pointed out that the leverage from the 1955 Knipling study was amplified from $250,000 to $20,000,000,000 advantage in reduction of damages to US cattle.  Of course this economic and environmental advantage has continued to amplify itself due to the continuing positive effects of screwworm eradication throughout the US and Central America.  A further advantage of the sterile screwworm program is the demonstration (proof of principle) of SIT for tephritid fruit flies, pink bollworm, coddling moth, and several kinds of disease-transmitting biting flies.

*“Dr. Anthony A. James, a distinguished professor at the University of California, Irvine, delivered the Founders’ Memorial Award lecture at the 2016 International Congress of Entomology (ICE 2016). The subject of Dr. James’ lecture was Dr. Edward F. Knipling, winner of the World Food Prize (1992), the Japan Prize (1995), the FAO Medal for Agricultural Science (1991), the President’s National Medal of Science (1967), and many other awards.”

“The Sexual Behaviour of the Screwworm Fly: One of the recipients of a Golden Fleece Award was E. F. Knipling for his research into the sex life of parasitic screwworm flies. Knipling developed the sterile male technique to eradicate this cattle pest, based on observations during the 1930s that male screwworm flies will mate with many females, while females will mate only once. He used this information to devise a male sterilization strategy using -rays. He released sterile males into the population and in a few generations completely eradicated this parasite. Knipling’s $250,000 grant from the Department of Agriculture led directly to a program estimated to have saved at least $20 billion for U.S. cattle producers. The sterile male technique is currently used as a standard eradication technique on many agricultural pests (Knipling, 2005; http://www.innovationtaskforce.org/docs/Screwworm.pdf).”

Brennen,

Knipling, E. F. 1979.  The basic principles of insect population suppression and management. USDA Agric. Handbook. 512.  659 pp.

http://www.csrtimys.res.in/structure/seri-engineering-division
Central Sericultural Research & Training Institute (CSRTI), Mysore
[An ISO 9001 : 2008 Organisation]
CENTRAL SILK BOARD – MINISTRY OF TEXTILES – GOVT. OF INDIA

Raising silkworms Hoi An Quang Nam, Vietnam www.gettyimages.ae

I have been trying to make useful distinctions between insect farming and insect rearing.  The differences that I suggest are that while farming is lower input and less controlled than rearing, rearing can usefully be distinguished with the incorporation of artificial diet.  While silkworms have been farmed for nearly 5000 years on their natural host (mulberry leaves), and honeybees have been managed but allow to feed on natural (or wild) foods, rearing with artificial diets began in the 19-teens when Drosophila species were given modified banana with yeast and agar added.  This set the stage for artificial diet-based rearing, which has been developing over the past 100 years.  I realize that if you grow a pepper plant in your lab or green house, and use that plant to support a colony of aphids, you are in a sense rearing the aphids.  But you are limited in your control over the plant’s nutritional value to the aphids.

So the distinction that I am making is based largely on INPUT and CONTROL.  With pre-farming  activities hunting, fishing, and gathering, the foods and other items like clothing, tools, etc. were not processed at all or not very much.  The early humans probably started off killing small animals by hand, grabbing fish out of the water, and picking plant materials.  As they started to use tools for hunting, fishing, and harvesting, they started to have a little more control, but when they domesticated plants and animals, they had higher levels of control, more predictable outcomes, and they were becoming agriculturalists (farmers).  I see insect farming as having input and control over the intended products.  The next steps add the control of the insects’ environment, its food, which insects breed with one-another, etc.  This tendency towards control gives much more reliable outcomes, and my insistence upon making rearing into a more and more scientific process is in line with the concept of predictable outcomes.

In the film clip on this page, I show the silkworms that I have been rearing on artificial diet.  But also, I include an image of the efforts that silk producing countries are making at reducing the labor and expanding the scope of silkworm farming such as the mulberry field in India where automation and machinery are being adopted to increase the yield of mulberry per hectare of land.  The same engineering organization is adding as much automation as possible to silkworm production, compared with the production of silkworms in the facility in Vietnam (which is still a very impressive process, though it may date back to hundreds or thousands of years of silkworm farms).

More on these points in future pages.

Please note: these pages on who’s who in rearing are thematically related to the pages that I have been posting on eating insects.  I have taken a slight turn here to work into this website some background on the variety of people and programs where insect rearing is central.

Using mulberry bushes, rather than trees reduces costs of farming silkworms

http://www.tammachat.com/

Laotian woman sorting silkworms: throughout rural Asia, tens of thousands of families make their living rearing silkworms and harvesting raw silk

• Woman removes silk worms from mulberry leaves
• Credit: Margie Politzer
• Creative #: 165661631
• Ban Xang Khong, Luang Prabang, Laos.
• www.gettyimages.ae

Who Is Rearing Insects?

This section of my blog pages is intended to provide an overview of people and institutions that are conducting significant rearing operations.  It cannot cover every high performance rearing operation for several reasons: 1) I cannot know all the people and organizations that do rearing, 2) there are so many rearing operations in existence that there would be no room to cover them all, and 3) many of the operations are doing rearing that is proprietary (such as private companies).  Based on my knowledge of the rearing community, I have estimated that there are at least 10,000 (possibly 20,000) people around the world who make their living or spend most of their time rearing insects.  These people do their rearing as part of research in educational institutions, for production by private companies, as part of government programs, and in a surprisingly diverse number of domains.

After spending a quarter of a century as an insect rearing specialist in the USDA, Agricultural Research Service, I thought that I had a grasp of the scope of insect rearing.  But as a rearing consultant in a private company and later as coordinator of an insect rearing program at North Carolina State University, I have been surprised at the number and kinds of rearing efforts around the world.  Here is a brief list of types of rearing operations:

1. International Organizations such as the United Nations, FAO (Food and Agriculture Organization), WHO (World Health Organization).
2. Large federal government laboratories: for example, 1) the USDA has rearing presence in the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service or APHIS, the 2) Forest Service, 3) the Agricultural Research Service, the 4) Canadian Forest Service, 5) Ag Canada, EMBRAPA, The Brazilian Agricultural Research Corporation, 6) the Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research, 7) French National Institute for Agricultural Research (INRA), 8) Department of Agriculture and Rural Development (Great Britain), 9) IRTA in Catalonia, Spain, 10) CIGAR in Africa (Nigeria, etc.), 11) IAR (Iran Agricultural Research), 12) Agricultural Research Organization, Volcani Center (Israel), 13) ARC or Agricultural Research Center, Egypt (under the Ministry of Agriculture and Land Reclamation), 14) International Food Policy Research Institute (China and Eastern Asia), 15) National Agriculture and Food Research Organization (NARO in Japan), 16) Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR), and many, many others. My references are biased towards North America, but every nation in the world has its own (sometimes multiple) organizations or works within a consortium of countries or umbrella organizations to rear insects for protection of food, for medical purposes, or for research.
3. State (or province) programs: in the US, for example, every state has its own department of agriculture or plant industry, and many of these have significant rearing facilities including some major rearing facilities.
4. University rearing laboratories (no matter how small the college or university there are almost always rearing efforts that provide insects used as research and educational tools).
5. Private Industry: 1) the companies that use insect rearing for their internal research and 2) the companies that produce insects directly for sales where the insects are used for food for other organisms, as biological control agents, as educational resources, and even as live creatures for various kinds of celebrations.

This list of various entities where rearing is practiced, sometimes on a major scale that employs dozens to hundreds of people in a single facility hardly expresses the scope and diversity of insect rearing operations.  Just imagine, for example, how much effort goes into rearing Bombyx mori for silk production.  Just in the silk industry in India alone, for example tens of thousands of families make their living in rural India by farming mulberry and rearing silkworms. I have included an interesting paragraph from the Gangopadhyay (2008) paper where sericulture is described.

From:  Sericulture Industry in India – A Review from India Science and Technology

By D. Gangopadhyay 2008. http://www.nistads.res.in/indiasnt2008/t6rural/t6rur16.htm

“Sericulture is both an art and science of raising silkworms for silk production. Silk as a weavable fiber was first discovered by the Chinese empress Xi Ling Shi during 2,640 B.C. and its culture and weaving was a guarded secret for more than 2,500 years by the Chinese. Silk was a profitable trade commodity in China. Traders from ancient Persia (now, Iran) used to bring richly coloured and fine textured silks from Chinese merchants through hazardous routes interspersed with dangerous mountainous terrains, difficult passes, dry deserts and thick forests. Though, commodities like amber, glass, spices and tea were also traded along with silk which indeed rapidly became one of the principal elements of the Chinese economy and hence, the trade route got the name ‘SILK ROUTE’. Even today, silk reigns supreme as an object of desire and fabric of high fashion. Being a rural based industry, the production and weaving of silk are largely carried out by relatively poor sections of the society and this aspect of sericulture has made it popular and sustainable in countries like China and India.”

It’s tempting to spend considerable time discussing the silkworm rearing industry because of its long-standing importance on the world stage for millennia, but the other aspects of insect rearing are more of the focus of this series on “who’s who in rearing?”  In future posts, I will discuss the overview of rearing and more details about the various rearing operations.