Evolution to the rescue!

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Thursday September 08, 2011 · 8:00 AM PDT

2011/09/08 · 08:00

The latest issue of "On Earth", a publication of the NRDC, is out, both in print & on line. One article linked here suggests that rapid evolution among some native species can help to control invasive non-native species.

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Some of the examples are simply of how some native grasses have evolved to co-exist with invasive knapweed, Canada thistle and cheatgrass. But, the prime focus of the article is the soapberry bug, a large family of bugs that include the box elder bugs found in the U.S.

Rapidly Evolving Bugs to the Rescue

Soapberry bugs native to Australia have evolved different beaks to attack the introduced and invasive American balloon vine. They made this evolutionary change in less than 40 years.

Meanwhile, in the U.S., the bugs have changed the size, timing, and number of eggs they lay in order to attack the invasive golden rain trees.

Conciliation Biology

Scott Carroll is the director of the Institute for Contemporary Evolution and a researcher at U.C. Davis. Mr. Carroll advocates using adaptable natives to help control invasives. He refers to this as "conciliation biology ". For example, massive breeding of bugs already adapted to attack invasives could be carried out and the bugs could then be released in infested areas.

Teh Google

I googled "soapberry bug" and got plenty beaucoups hits, many seemingly referring to rapid evolution and Mr. Carroll. One appears to be something of a compendium of all things soapberry bug, "Soapberry Bugs of the World" from soapberrybug.org here

The site has a guide to species and habitats, so you can see which are likely to be in your yard and what they should feed on. If you find some feeding on something else, you may be witnessing actual evolution in progress. It might even be worth a call to some ag researcher or expert, who knows.

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