WEBVTT - Listener Questions: Bugs!! 0:00:06.840 --> 0:00:10.520 Welcome to Creature Feature Production of iHeartRadio. I'm your host 0:00:10.560 --> 0:00:15.320 of Many Parasites, Katie Goolden. I studied psychology and evolutionary biology, 0:00:15.360 --> 0:00:20.400 and today on the show, it's a Buggy Listener Questions episode. 0:00:21.200 --> 0:00:25.159 I got a bunch of questions about insects, and I 0:00:25.160 --> 0:00:29.280 thought i'd answer them all at once, so I. 0:00:29.080 --> 0:00:33.120 Hope you enjoy. Let's get right into it. 0:00:33.159 --> 0:00:36.040 Oh and remember, if you have a question that you 0:00:36.080 --> 0:00:38.520 would like answered, you can write to me at Creature 0:00:38.560 --> 0:00:41.960 Featurepod at gmail dot com. Doesn't have to be about insects, 0:00:42.040 --> 0:00:46.199 but it certainly can be. So let's get right into it, Hi, Katie, 0:00:46.240 --> 0:00:50.000 what do bugs c? Specifically, what do insects see, especially 0:00:50.080 --> 0:00:53.840 the ones with large, elaborate compound eyes is like a 0:00:53.920 --> 0:00:57.840 dragonflies individual eye segment directly connected to their brains. Does 0:00:58.000 --> 0:01:01.880 eye size correlate with brain size and intelligence? Thanks love 0:01:01.920 --> 0:01:07.880 the show, Juanito. Also some additional context from Juanito. This 0:01:08.040 --> 0:01:12.319 question was prompted by reading Adrian Tchaikovski's Children of Time 0:01:12.560 --> 0:01:16.080 novel and the book A species of jumping spider Portia 0:01:16.319 --> 0:01:21.160 labiata gets accidentally uplifted to sentience and technology developing level. 0:01:21.560 --> 0:01:24.880 The author's description of the iraqtid censorium is fascinating. And 0:01:24.959 --> 0:01:27.479 you know what, all his books I've read so far 0:01:27.520 --> 0:01:32.520 investigate crazy interesting biology, invented the aliens, worlds, or real 0:01:32.640 --> 0:01:38.039 the cute little spider guys. I just discovered Adrian Tryikovsky 0:01:38.120 --> 0:01:40.679 this year and I heartily recommend his books. He studied 0:01:40.760 --> 0:01:44.440 zoology and psych before becoming an author. Wow, that sounds 0:01:44.440 --> 0:01:47.400 a lot like me, except I haven't written about super 0:01:47.440 --> 0:01:52.200 intelligent jumping spiders, but that sounds very cool. Thank you 0:01:52.520 --> 0:01:56.200 Juanito for the question and for the book recommendation. I'll 0:01:56.280 --> 0:02:01.360 check that out. So this is a great question about eyesight. 0:02:02.000 --> 0:02:06.680 How insects see the world, how compound eyes work, if 0:02:06.800 --> 0:02:10.240 eye size correlates with brain size, and intelligence, all really 0:02:10.280 --> 0:02:15.200 really good questions. So the broad answer in terms of 0:02:15.400 --> 0:02:18.760 insect vision is that it really depends on the insect. 0:02:19.160 --> 0:02:22.160 Different insects have different kind of eyes. Even insects who 0:02:22.200 --> 0:02:26.280 have compound eyes can have different types of compound eyes 0:02:26.320 --> 0:02:29.360 in different ways. Those are wired to the brain. But 0:02:29.480 --> 0:02:34.400 let's break down first the components of how vision is processed. 0:02:34.919 --> 0:02:38.400 You have the hardware, aspects of the eye, the lens, 0:02:38.520 --> 0:02:41.520 the shape of the eye, the retina, whether the animal 0:02:41.600 --> 0:02:46.040 has rods, cones or both, or simply light sensitive cells 0:02:46.080 --> 0:02:48.320 that can tell the difference between dark and lights. So 0:02:48.360 --> 0:02:52.040 there's a lot of hardware to the eye that will 0:02:52.080 --> 0:02:55.960 determine how the light goes into the eye and where 0:02:55.960 --> 0:02:59.240 it goes to. And then the information has to reach 0:02:59.280 --> 0:03:04.360 the brain, usually through some sort of nerve cluster, and 0:03:04.360 --> 0:03:07.040 then the brain has to process the raw visual data, 0:03:07.480 --> 0:03:10.160 and after that other parts of the brain interpret those 0:03:10.280 --> 0:03:14.600 findings and those get sent down to other nerves that 0:03:14.760 --> 0:03:19.680 control muscles and reactions. So there are multiple points from 0:03:19.800 --> 0:03:23.760 the light hitting the eye to the organism's experience where 0:03:23.800 --> 0:03:27.919 that light is being transformed, both physically by the structure 0:03:27.919 --> 0:03:31.079 of the eye, by like the lens being directed into 0:03:31.120 --> 0:03:34.840 the eye, and then once it's inside, how it's hitting 0:03:35.040 --> 0:03:38.440 the back of the eye, what it's hitting, the sensory cells, 0:03:38.480 --> 0:03:40.920 the structures inside the eye that are funneling the light, 0:03:42.440 --> 0:03:46.000 and then also how that data is perceived, So both 0:03:46.040 --> 0:03:48.400 how it goes from the eye to the brain, the 0:03:48.440 --> 0:03:54.440 wiring of the neurons that transfer that data, and then 0:03:54.480 --> 0:03:58.680 how the brain process is it. So in terms of 0:03:59.000 --> 0:04:04.600 what something sees, it's a very interestingly subjective experience, even 0:04:04.640 --> 0:04:08.760 for us humans. We might think our site shows completely 0:04:08.800 --> 0:04:12.160 objective reality, but if you've ever seen an optical illusion, 0:04:12.280 --> 0:04:14.920 you'll realize our brains do a lot of funny business 0:04:15.160 --> 0:04:17.760 with that light hitting our eyes. There's a lot that 0:04:17.839 --> 0:04:21.039 happens between that and getting processed in our brain to 0:04:21.040 --> 0:04:23.440 the point where you can look at an optical illusion 0:04:24.000 --> 0:04:27.760 and see something very strange, because that's your brain working 0:04:27.920 --> 0:04:31.000 to try to interpret these signals and adding things in 0:04:31.040 --> 0:04:36.640 that may not actually be there. So let's also explore 0:04:36.680 --> 0:04:41.239 this question of eye size and intelligence. So ie size 0:04:41.279 --> 0:04:45.440 and brain size are not always correlated, and brain size 0:04:45.640 --> 0:04:49.840 isn't always correlated with superior intelligence. You have some things 0:04:49.839 --> 0:04:53.159 that might have really big brains and not necessarily be 0:04:53.200 --> 0:04:55.800 as intelligent as something that has a smaller brain. Right, 0:04:56.560 --> 0:04:59.800 we certainly don't have the largest brains in the world, 0:05:00.000 --> 0:05:04.360 but we're very intelligent. But in general, the general trend 0:05:04.880 --> 0:05:09.440 is that brain size can and does correlate with intelligence. 0:05:09.480 --> 0:05:12.640 It's just not a hard rule. There's many, many exceptions, 0:05:13.040 --> 0:05:16.400 and a similar thing happens with brain and ee size, 0:05:16.600 --> 0:05:21.080 or say like sensitive sensory organs and brain size. So 0:05:21.880 --> 0:05:24.560 there are some studies that find that eye size is 0:05:24.720 --> 0:05:28.440 positively correlated with brain size, though it's highly dependent on 0:05:28.560 --> 0:05:32.159 the type of animal. There's been some research on frogs 0:05:32.200 --> 0:05:36.599 that find eye size and brain size are linked, but 0:05:36.920 --> 0:05:40.919 studies done in guppies the fish found that eye size 0:05:40.920 --> 0:05:44.279 and brain size were positively correlated, but it did not 0:05:44.400 --> 0:05:54.279 actually predict better visual acuity or necessarily intelligence. So the 0:05:54.320 --> 0:05:57.080 idea behind brain size and eye size or eye complexity 0:05:57.160 --> 0:06:00.520 being related is a good one. Naturally, bigger eyes and 0:06:00.560 --> 0:06:04.599 more complex visual processing should require more space in the 0:06:04.640 --> 0:06:08.480 brain are at least more complex brain folds. We do 0:06:08.520 --> 0:06:12.440 actually see this kind of correlation in dolphins who have 0:06:12.760 --> 0:06:16.480 massive auditory processing parts of their brains to help with 0:06:16.560 --> 0:06:20.880 the complex task of echolocation, and in humans we have 0:06:21.040 --> 0:06:25.320 huge visual processing areas of the brain and complex large 0:06:25.320 --> 0:06:30.640 eyes and very complex vision. But some counter examples. You 0:06:30.720 --> 0:06:33.920 have the tarsiir, which is a tiny primate who has 0:06:34.040 --> 0:06:38.240 disproportionately large eyeballs. They're so big that they can barely 0:06:38.279 --> 0:06:41.520 fit in its head. They can't turn in their sockets, 0:06:41.560 --> 0:06:43.240 so if it wants to look around, it has to 0:06:43.320 --> 0:06:47.320 move its whole head rotate its head around, and its 0:06:47.400 --> 0:06:49.919 brain is not that big. In fact, its brain is 0:06:49.960 --> 0:06:53.479 smaller than one of its giant eyeballs. Also, its brain 0:06:53.560 --> 0:06:58.520 is relatively smooth, and so the trade off seems to 0:06:58.520 --> 0:07:00.760 be that it has ditched a lot of its other 0:07:00.839 --> 0:07:06.120 brain mass, say like olfactory brain mass or other you know, 0:07:06.839 --> 0:07:11.440 parts of the brain in favor of a disproportionately large 0:07:11.600 --> 0:07:15.320 visual cortex, which is still small but enough to take 0:07:15.360 --> 0:07:18.360 in the visual data from those giant eyeballs, which are 0:07:18.400 --> 0:07:22.680 designed to see at night for feeding on nocturnal insects. 0:07:22.680 --> 0:07:26.240 Speaking of nocturnal insects, they have managed to develop a 0:07:26.360 --> 0:07:30.840 keen night vision despite often having small eyes and small brains. 0:07:31.240 --> 0:07:35.040 They manage this with clever trade offs. Instead of seeing clear, 0:07:35.200 --> 0:07:39.760 crisp images like we do, they see very slow course 0:07:39.800 --> 0:07:44.960 images with high contrast. So this allows them to react 0:07:45.000 --> 0:07:48.080 to threats at in the night in the darkness, or 0:07:48.120 --> 0:07:51.160 to find mates while everything kind of looks like an 0:07:51.240 --> 0:07:55.160 overexposed black and white image that has been repeatedly compressed 0:07:55.240 --> 0:07:59.280 until it's a grainy bunch of pixels moving in sort 0:07:59.320 --> 0:08:05.680 of delay slow motion. Other insects have very different visual experiences. 0:08:05.920 --> 0:08:08.680 Fruit Flies have eyes and brains that work together to 0:08:08.720 --> 0:08:12.480 allow for very rapid responses to visual information with sharp 0:08:12.600 --> 0:08:16.960 crisp edges, so kind of quite different from these nocturnal insects. 0:08:17.240 --> 0:08:20.920 Many insects see colors that we can't perceive, like those 0:08:21.080 --> 0:08:24.080 in the ultraviolet range, which allow them to zero in 0:08:24.120 --> 0:08:27.960 on flowers who signal to them with secret colorful runways 0:08:27.960 --> 0:08:32.959 to aid in pollination. And this is the case for dragonflies, 0:08:32.960 --> 0:08:36.439 who can either be pollinators, they can also be predators, 0:08:37.240 --> 0:08:41.920 but they have those big, impressive compound eyes. Compound eyes 0:08:41.920 --> 0:08:45.559 are made up of a bunch of distinct units called omatidia, 0:08:45.960 --> 0:08:49.520 which each one comes with a lens, a cornea, and 0:08:49.679 --> 0:08:55.000 photoreceptive cells. So they are these like individual units of vision. 0:08:55.200 --> 0:08:58.040 Whereas you compare it to our e we have one lens, 0:08:58.600 --> 0:09:01.040 one cornea, and then a now with a bunch of 0:09:01.120 --> 0:09:04.320 photoreceptive cells at the back. They have just like a 0:09:04.400 --> 0:09:07.360 bunch of these units. Each one has a lens, in 0:09:07.400 --> 0:09:11.840 acornea and photoreceptive cells. There can be tens of thousands 0:09:11.920 --> 0:09:15.600 of these on a single eye. Different insects have different 0:09:15.600 --> 0:09:18.760 ways in which these compound eyes are connected to the brain, 0:09:19.440 --> 0:09:23.080 different methods of resolving the mass of tens of thousands 0:09:23.120 --> 0:09:28.320 of single units of information. Sometimes individual units are clustered 0:09:28.320 --> 0:09:33.640 together in processing for a more sensitive but lower resolution image. 0:09:34.120 --> 0:09:37.360 Others are more complex with an increase in neural wiring 0:09:37.559 --> 0:09:42.400 for higher resolution and still sensitive vision. The reason not 0:09:42.559 --> 0:09:47.920 all the eyes maximize resolution and sensitivity is because this 0:09:48.000 --> 0:09:52.319 precise wiring is a higher neural load, so some insects 0:09:52.360 --> 0:09:55.360 will trade off for less neural processing for a lower 0:09:55.440 --> 0:10:01.679 resolution image whatever is needed most for survival. Dragonflies specifically 0:10:01.720 --> 0:10:05.240 have eyes that are highly sensitive to color, even more 0:10:05.280 --> 0:10:08.400 so than human eyes. They also have three hundred and 0:10:08.440 --> 0:10:12.319 sixty degree vision with about two hundred images per second, 0:10:12.840 --> 0:10:16.559 meaning that they see in bullet time, basically slow motion. 0:10:18.200 --> 0:10:21.840 Most of their brain is dedicated to visual processing, like 0:10:21.920 --> 0:10:25.360 eighty percent of their brain, so they see a highly 0:10:25.480 --> 0:10:31.520 colorful world with ultraviolet and polarized light. It maybe being 0:10:31.760 --> 0:10:34.120 a dragonfly would sort of be like taking in a 0:10:34.160 --> 0:10:38.960 slow motion movie at an IMAX theater that's really brightly 0:10:39.080 --> 0:10:43.040 colored all around you. But again, it's kind of hard 0:10:43.040 --> 0:10:45.360 to say how they actually experience this, right, Like, we 0:10:45.400 --> 0:10:49.319 can't avatar into a dragonfly brain. We've got our human 0:10:49.360 --> 0:10:52.800 brains with our human feelings and thoughts about what we 0:10:52.920 --> 0:10:56.480 see in our visions, so it's very hard to know 0:10:56.559 --> 0:10:59.840 what they actually experience, but we can kind of say 0:11:00.320 --> 0:11:03.800 this is what the information that is reaching their brain 0:11:04.240 --> 0:11:09.240 is very interesting, A very different way of viewing the world. 0:11:09.360 --> 0:11:13.360 Sounds very trippy. Onto the next listener question. Hi, Katie. 0:11:13.400 --> 0:11:16.320 After the first rain of the season, ants began appearing 0:11:16.360 --> 0:11:20.200 in my house. Luckily, I have indoor ant traps, so 0:11:20.360 --> 0:11:26.000 I am not expecting any ant ant ant mageddon happening. However, 0:11:26.120 --> 0:11:29.280 as I was observing the hapless creatures harvesting the poison 0:11:29.320 --> 0:11:31.240 in the ant trap, I began to wonder would the 0:11:31.240 --> 0:11:34.880 colony ever evolve to become aware of the man made poison, 0:11:35.320 --> 0:11:37.559 like how some species of ants are aware if one 0:11:37.559 --> 0:11:40.839 of their own is carrying the Cordyceps spores and would 0:11:40.840 --> 0:11:43.560 take action to get rid of the infected ant. The 0:11:43.600 --> 0:11:45.520 ant traps are designed so the ant would carry the 0:11:45.559 --> 0:11:48.600 poison back to the nest and henceforth killing the whole 0:11:48.640 --> 0:11:51.920 colony by sharing the poisonous food. At this point, I'm 0:11:52.040 --> 0:11:53.680 at the edge of a rabbit hole that I'm hoping 0:11:53.720 --> 0:11:56.240 not to fall into because I started reading the ingredients 0:11:56.240 --> 0:11:58.320 of the ant trap, which is point zero one percent 0:11:58.360 --> 0:12:01.680 avermect and B and ninety nine percent sent other ingredients 0:12:01.679 --> 0:12:04.760 and I definitely don't know what any of that really means. Anyways, 0:12:05.080 --> 0:12:06.679 I would love to hear your thoughts before I get 0:12:06.679 --> 0:12:11.000 too carried away. Thanks Jessec Hi Jesse, this is an 0:12:11.040 --> 0:12:16.920 amazing question. First, let me just give some context. She mentions. First, 0:12:17.040 --> 0:12:21.920 let me give some context. Courtceps are mentioned. The courdyceps 0:12:21.920 --> 0:12:26.679 are spores of a fungus that can infect various arthropods, 0:12:26.720 --> 0:12:31.680 including ants, and so ants have learned to identify an 0:12:31.720 --> 0:12:34.559 infected individual and carry them far away from the colony 0:12:34.679 --> 0:12:37.120 so they don't infect the rest of the colony. So 0:12:37.440 --> 0:12:42.080 there are two ways ants might thwart threats or poison 0:12:42.880 --> 0:12:47.640 evolution or learning. So evolution is a very slow process 0:12:47.640 --> 0:12:51.400 over many hundreds thousands, hundreds of thousands, or even millions 0:12:51.440 --> 0:12:56.160 of years. So for ants to develop an innate instinctive 0:12:56.200 --> 0:13:00.480 behavior towards, say, human ant bait traps, we would probably 0:13:00.520 --> 0:13:03.880 need to co evolve with them for quite a while, 0:13:04.200 --> 0:13:08.680 but it would be possible. Some evolutionary traits already seem 0:13:08.720 --> 0:13:13.560 to act as potential protection against poisoning. So some ant 0:13:13.600 --> 0:13:18.480 species have worker ants that act as living larders. These 0:13:18.480 --> 0:13:22.440 are usually older workers who consume some food source and 0:13:22.480 --> 0:13:24.800 just kind of stand around and offer it to other 0:13:24.880 --> 0:13:28.880 ants via regurgitation, kind of like a living vending machine. 0:13:29.760 --> 0:13:34.160 This could potentially help dilute toxins or simply kill off 0:13:34.240 --> 0:13:39.319 the ant that has ingested all of these toxins, and 0:13:39.840 --> 0:13:44.760 so it may act as a kind of buffer between 0:13:44.880 --> 0:13:49.400 these ants that have these sort of living larger members 0:13:49.480 --> 0:13:51.640 of the colony eating a bunch of food and then 0:13:51.960 --> 0:13:55.360 offering it to other workers after it's already been diluted 0:13:55.400 --> 0:13:58.760 in its gut. But it's not a strategy that has 0:13:58.760 --> 0:14:03.040 evolved specifically for ant traps or ant poison or toxins, 0:14:03.080 --> 0:14:06.600 but it may be a separate benefit. This is a 0:14:06.640 --> 0:14:11.800 behavior that's evaulved for things like surviving famine, for economizing 0:14:12.240 --> 0:14:15.400 food gathering, things like that, but it could have the 0:14:15.440 --> 0:14:20.360 impact of helping them survive human traps. But ants do 0:14:20.760 --> 0:14:25.640 have the capacity to learn, particularly as a colony, and 0:14:25.760 --> 0:14:28.800 this is a faster process than evolution. You can have 0:14:28.840 --> 0:14:35.120 a colony adapt to some threat or something within a 0:14:35.240 --> 0:14:41.520 matter of a single generation just by learning. So Argentine 0:14:41.600 --> 0:14:44.400 ants have shown signs that as a colony they are 0:14:44.440 --> 0:14:48.160 capable of learning about poison bait and change their behavior 0:14:48.280 --> 0:14:51.960 in response to it. So the cleverness of ant bait 0:14:52.480 --> 0:14:55.440 is that it has a delayed response, so the ant 0:14:55.480 --> 0:14:59.640 eats it, it doesn't immediately die, which gives it time 0:14:59.720 --> 0:15:03.600 to you lay down pheromone trails to alert other ants 0:15:03.640 --> 0:15:06.560 about what seems like tasty food. Bring it back to 0:15:06.640 --> 0:15:09.040 the colony. All these ants come and they gather a 0:15:09.040 --> 0:15:12.120 bunch of it, bring it back. Still hasn't killed them yet, 0:15:12.400 --> 0:15:14.720 and then finally it starts to set in and kill 0:15:14.800 --> 0:15:19.600 them off. And by then, you know, hopefully for you 0:15:19.680 --> 0:15:22.880 and sadly for the ants, it's too late. They've already 0:15:22.920 --> 0:15:25.280 brought it in and so a lot of them die. 0:15:27.120 --> 0:15:30.160 But yeah, so this is very insidious. It's a very 0:15:30.200 --> 0:15:34.120 clever way to kill ants. But researchers have found that 0:15:34.240 --> 0:15:37.800 argentine ants, which are one of the most common ant 0:15:37.840 --> 0:15:43.240 species in the world, they are highly invasive, incredibly durable, 0:15:43.920 --> 0:15:46.120 really hard to get rid of if you've ever had 0:15:46.120 --> 0:15:49.520 an argentine ant invasion. So this might be one reason 0:15:49.560 --> 0:15:54.120 why so argentine ants seem to be able to learn 0:15:54.200 --> 0:16:01.040 to abandon toxic food sources and human beita traps. So 0:16:02.080 --> 0:16:05.640 one of the studies authors that was looking into this 0:16:05.800 --> 0:16:13.320 Argentina ant behavior entomologist Roxanna Johnson's happened upon this when 0:16:13.440 --> 0:16:16.640 she was trying to help a pediatric hospital get rid 0:16:16.680 --> 0:16:20.160 of their Argentine ant problem with baited traps and noticed 0:16:20.680 --> 0:16:24.440 that the ants simply abandoned the traps without poisoning the 0:16:24.480 --> 0:16:28.480 whole colony. So she got some argentine ants, put them 0:16:28.480 --> 0:16:31.480 in the lab, offered out some food sources, some that 0:16:31.640 --> 0:16:34.360 was just benign sugar water and some that had boric 0:16:34.400 --> 0:16:38.120 acid in it, which is an ingredient that's found in 0:16:38.360 --> 0:16:45.440 these ant ant traps or ant poison baits. And so 0:16:45.600 --> 0:16:50.600 what they found is that these ants learned to abandon 0:16:51.040 --> 0:16:57.720 the poisoned bait after about six hours, and in fact 0:16:57.920 --> 0:17:03.680 they had not managed to consume enough of it and 0:17:03.720 --> 0:17:06.639 bring back enough of it to destroy the rest of 0:17:06.680 --> 0:17:09.680 the ants. Of a few individual died, but not the 0:17:09.840 --> 0:17:15.880 entire laboratory colony. So the interesting thing is, we don't 0:17:15.920 --> 0:17:19.640 know how they know how to do this. So clearly 0:17:19.680 --> 0:17:24.480 there is some sort of algorithm happening where the ants 0:17:24.720 --> 0:17:27.520 go to the tainted food less and less and the 0:17:27.560 --> 0:17:32.119 pheromone trail weekends, whereas it strengthens for the food source 0:17:32.160 --> 0:17:36.400 that's safe but the researchers don't know how they're determining 0:17:37.640 --> 0:17:42.439 the tainted food source is unsafe. So still plenty of 0:17:42.440 --> 0:17:44.760 research that needs to be done on how these ants 0:17:44.800 --> 0:17:48.560 are learning to avoid the ant bait. But we know 0:17:48.840 --> 0:17:51.879 that at least argentine ants and possibly other species of 0:17:51.920 --> 0:17:55.399 ants do have strategies to counter it and can learn 0:17:55.960 --> 0:18:00.760 to avoid it. So yeah, so that is I would 0:18:00.800 --> 0:18:04.440 say learning is something that is it's not quite evolving 0:18:05.640 --> 0:18:09.600 to counter a threat, because evolution, that's that's a longer 0:18:09.680 --> 0:18:15.679 process that implies a fundamental intrinsic sort of change in 0:18:15.720 --> 0:18:21.680 the ants biology and species. But learning is of course 0:18:22.080 --> 0:18:27.080 something that's really really interesting, and you could absolutely have 0:18:27.240 --> 0:18:32.480 ants eventually adapt and evolve to counter ant poison human 0:18:32.760 --> 0:18:35.639 made ant poison if it is, oh, if we co 0:18:35.720 --> 0:18:42.200 evolve with them for long enough. All right on to 0:18:42.560 --> 0:18:47.320 the next listener question. Hi, Katie and or whomever reads this. 0:18:47.480 --> 0:18:49.439 It was me and my dog, that's who read it. 0:18:49.640 --> 0:18:52.240 I was recently listening to the episode with Janet Varney 0:18:52.280 --> 0:18:57.480 where you discussed bugs as alternative food sources and invasive 0:18:57.520 --> 0:19:00.520 species from the pet trade. I always want wondering if 0:19:00.560 --> 0:19:03.919 there have been any studies about the impact of industrial 0:19:04.000 --> 0:19:07.480 bug farming. You discussed animals from the pet trade becoming 0:19:07.520 --> 0:19:10.720 issues in an ecosystem. I guess I have several questions. 0:19:10.800 --> 0:19:14.000 Is there an industrial bug farm, what does it look like? 0:19:14.119 --> 0:19:16.880 And could a breach cause harmful spikes in a population 0:19:17.080 --> 0:19:20.800 to the flora and fauna. Thank you, Laura, Hi Laura, 0:19:20.920 --> 0:19:25.120 this is a fantastic question. I actually do know someone 0:19:25.200 --> 0:19:28.880 who researches crickets and has poked around cricket farms where 0:19:28.920 --> 0:19:31.679 they're raised as food. I'll try to get her on 0:19:31.720 --> 0:19:34.879 the show someday to talk more about both crickets and 0:19:34.920 --> 0:19:38.040 her experience checking out the cricket farm. So, in answer 0:19:38.080 --> 0:19:41.480 to your question, could is there this threat of insects 0:19:41.560 --> 0:19:46.040 being invasive if you're doing an insect farm? Absolutely yes, 0:19:46.240 --> 0:19:51.240 So all farm animals and plants can become invasive, and 0:19:51.320 --> 0:19:56.120 this could be absolutely true of insects already. There are 0:19:56.440 --> 0:19:59.840 insect farms, some used as food, like crickets being turned 0:19:59.880 --> 0:20:04.280 in into cricket meal or meal worms being turned into meal. 0:20:04.720 --> 0:20:09.160 Some farms use them as animal feed rather than human feed. 0:20:09.359 --> 0:20:13.399 Some farms use maggots like black fly larvae to break 0:20:13.440 --> 0:20:18.760 down food waste into frass, which is a nicer term 0:20:18.840 --> 0:20:21.920 for maggot poop that can then be used as a fertilizer. 0:20:22.240 --> 0:20:26.800 So we do already have bug farms, but a large 0:20:27.280 --> 0:20:31.480 bug farming industry doesn't really exist yet, not in the 0:20:31.480 --> 0:20:37.160 way that other industrial farms exist. So as you probably 0:20:37.600 --> 0:20:42.040 kind of instinctively understand, like, insects are very prolific, they're tiny, 0:20:42.320 --> 0:20:47.680 they're perfect candidates for becoming an invasive species. So they 0:20:47.720 --> 0:20:51.680 often become invasive just by hitching a ride in cargo 0:20:51.840 --> 0:20:55.480 and accidentally getting dropped off somewhere they don't belong. And 0:20:55.520 --> 0:20:59.760 they're so fecunned, they produce so much so many offspring, 0:21:00.840 --> 0:21:05.760 and they are highly adaptable typically that they're great at 0:21:05.960 --> 0:21:10.639 being invasive species. So a farm where you have a 0:21:10.680 --> 0:21:14.199 bunch of insects, potentially insects that have been selectively bred 0:21:14.440 --> 0:21:21.400 to endure harsh conditions or to breed more prolifically, Yeah, 0:21:21.400 --> 0:21:24.600 that would be a prime spot for there to be 0:21:24.840 --> 0:21:30.960 an invasive event, right, that could certainly pose a risk. 0:21:32.280 --> 0:21:35.159 In fact, we kind of already see that. We have 0:21:35.200 --> 0:21:38.000 a big example of that, which is honey bees. So 0:21:38.119 --> 0:21:41.119 honey bees, as cute and wonderful as they are, they 0:21:41.119 --> 0:21:45.879 are not native to the Americas. We imported them to 0:21:46.119 --> 0:21:49.840 make honey for us, for farms and to pollinate crops. 0:21:50.359 --> 0:21:54.320 The problem is that they can actually out compete native 0:21:54.359 --> 0:21:57.560 species of bees, which can both be harmful to the 0:21:57.760 --> 0:22:01.639 native bees themselves and also to the plants and the 0:22:01.680 --> 0:22:06.040 flowers that the native bees pollinate. Because you don't always 0:22:06.240 --> 0:22:10.359 just replace one pollinator with another, you can have a 0:22:10.400 --> 0:22:14.560 really specific relationship between say a wildflower, and a native 0:22:14.600 --> 0:22:18.520 species of bees who have co evolved with a wildflower, 0:22:18.560 --> 0:22:23.280 and they are a specific size, exhibit a specific behavior 0:22:23.680 --> 0:22:27.200 that the flower has co evolved with, and so their 0:22:27.240 --> 0:22:31.800 whole pollination structure is based on this species of bee 0:22:32.640 --> 0:22:35.280 and not necessarily based on the behavior of a honeybe. 0:22:35.800 --> 0:22:40.520 So you could, if you say, threaten a species of 0:22:40.600 --> 0:22:43.199 native bees because the honey bees are outcompeting them. You 0:22:43.200 --> 0:22:48.000 could also threaten native plants as well. So honey bees, 0:22:48.400 --> 0:22:50.160 I mean, I love them, right, and I love honey, 0:22:50.200 --> 0:22:54.040 but yeah, they are actually an example of what you're 0:22:54.040 --> 0:22:57.920 talking about. Bees that are used in large scale farming 0:22:58.960 --> 0:23:02.560 who have become invain because you can't really how do 0:23:02.560 --> 0:23:04.639 you keep how do you keep a honey bee in 0:23:04.680 --> 0:23:09.040 a cage? You don't they go around, and yeah, they 0:23:09.080 --> 0:23:14.520 have caused issues for the environment. Also, Laura, your question 0:23:15.000 --> 0:23:19.200 is so important. It is actually being asked by ecologists 0:23:20.280 --> 0:23:24.840 now as we're having more and more of these discussions 0:23:24.920 --> 0:23:31.720 and sort of proposals for having industrial scale insect farms. 0:23:31.760 --> 0:23:36.280 So the ideas that insects are more ecologically friendly because 0:23:36.440 --> 0:23:43.680 the sort of feed to waste to protein output ratios 0:23:43.760 --> 0:23:47.280 are much better than say a beef farm. So like 0:23:47.400 --> 0:23:52.160 cows are pretty wasteful when you consider sort of their 0:23:52.240 --> 0:23:54.960 waste and the amount of energy you have to put 0:23:55.000 --> 0:23:59.800 in per unit of cow meat, whereas insects are a 0:23:59.800 --> 0:24:05.159 lot more efficient in that respect. But there are a 0:24:05.160 --> 0:24:08.080 lot of questions that ecologists are raising because we don't 0:24:08.119 --> 0:24:13.840 actually have these large scale industrial bug farms that are 0:24:14.520 --> 0:24:17.960 similar in scale to other types of industrial farms that 0:24:18.000 --> 0:24:22.479 we have currently. So there is an article in Trends 0:24:22.480 --> 0:24:27.600 and Ecology and Evolution called Approaching Ecological Sustainability in the 0:24:27.640 --> 0:24:36.320 Emerging Insects as Food Industry. So your question is essentially 0:24:36.359 --> 0:24:41.000 the subject of this paper by concerned ecologists who are 0:24:41.320 --> 0:24:44.879 asking the same questions as you and pointing out a 0:24:45.000 --> 0:24:48.080 lack of research on the risk factors of large scale 0:24:48.119 --> 0:24:53.720 insects farms and the many unknowns of environmental impacts of 0:24:53.760 --> 0:24:56.199 insects farms. One of the points they bring up is 0:24:56.240 --> 0:25:00.480 the invasiveness aspect, the fact that these insects could get out, 0:25:00.560 --> 0:25:03.720 that these could be heartier than native species because we 0:25:03.800 --> 0:25:06.679 might breed them that way, and that they could cause 0:25:07.680 --> 0:25:14.919 destruction to the local ecology. And there's also other questions 0:25:14.960 --> 0:25:17.640 like even though we do know that they're more efficient 0:25:17.640 --> 0:25:21.919 in terms of like feed in protein out, there's not 0:25:22.119 --> 0:25:24.600 a lot of data on how you actually how do 0:25:24.640 --> 0:25:28.239 you house that many insects? Right, Like I do know 0:25:28.280 --> 0:25:34.000 from my friend the one he studies crickets that answers 0:25:34.080 --> 0:25:38.040 are very sensitive to things like heat, so in temperature, 0:25:38.200 --> 0:25:40.879 so you have to you might have to have really 0:25:40.920 --> 0:25:46.040 specific temperature controls for that many insects, both to make 0:25:46.080 --> 0:25:49.760 sure that they're eating and breeding and growing things like that. 0:25:50.960 --> 0:25:54.520 So also you know, just like how do you how 0:25:54.560 --> 0:25:59.320 do you prevent there from being say like disease that 0:25:59.400 --> 0:26:02.719 wipes out all of the insects. All sorts of questions 0:26:03.160 --> 0:26:06.679 in terms of how sustainable would they be and what 0:26:06.720 --> 0:26:09.639 are the risks to the environment that we don't really know. 0:26:09.920 --> 0:26:13.360 I mean, I would still say that it's very promising, right, 0:26:13.520 --> 0:26:17.919 like the I think it's something that is worth looking 0:26:17.960 --> 0:26:23.000 into because our current industrial farming situation is not good. 0:26:23.600 --> 0:26:26.480 You know, it's not it is bad for the environment. 0:26:26.920 --> 0:26:33.400 It tends to be very wasteful. Also, you know, there's 0:26:33.480 --> 0:26:36.680 a lot of ethical concerns in terms of the treatment 0:26:36.720 --> 0:26:42.560 of animals. So you know, I think having insects as 0:26:42.600 --> 0:26:45.399 a potential alternative food source and looking into it is 0:26:45.760 --> 0:26:49.320 really important. But it's also not something to just be 0:26:49.440 --> 0:26:54.240 done without actually considering things that you've brought up, like 0:26:54.320 --> 0:26:57.879 the invasiveness aspect and what are the what are the 0:26:57.920 --> 0:27:03.199 other potential implications of an industrial sized insect form and 0:27:03.240 --> 0:27:08.360 it's an impact on the environment. So fantastic question. Uh, 0:27:08.440 --> 0:27:12.240 you could you could? You could be an ecologist because 0:27:12.280 --> 0:27:16.760 you're asking the very questions that they are asking. H Well, 0:27:16.800 --> 0:27:20.040 thank you guys so much for your extremely thoughtful and 0:27:20.200 --> 0:27:24.359 intelligent questions. I always enjoy them. It makes me do 0:27:24.480 --> 0:27:27.080 a little bit of homework that I really like to 0:27:27.119 --> 0:27:30.440 do because it keeps me sort of I guess, more 0:27:30.520 --> 0:27:34.080 up to date with uh, with research and stuff that 0:27:34.720 --> 0:27:37.560 I might not think to look into, but you guys do, 0:27:37.640 --> 0:27:40.439