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Piña-Domínguez IA, Ruiz-May E, Hernández-Rodríguez D, Zepeda RC, Melgar-Lalanne G. Environmental effects of harvesting some Mexican wild edible insects: An overview. FRONTIERS IN SUSTAINABLE FOOD SYSTEMS 2022. [DOI: 10.3389/fsufs.2022.1021861] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/13/2022] Open
Abstract
Most traditional edible insects are collected from the forest and agricultural fields, where they are considered pests. However, their importance goes beyond this. They also have an ecological role and potential to be an emerging alternative source of high-quality nutrients that can help satisfy the growing food demand for the human population. Agricultural insect pests are a healthy food source during the harvesting season in many tropical countries. In Mexico, wild insects such as chicatana (queen of flying leaf-cutter ant, Atta mexicana Smith, 1,858; Hymenoptera: Formicidae), chapulín (grasshopper, Pyrgomorphidae), chinicuil (agave red worm, Comadia redtenbacheri Hammerschmidt, 1,848: Lepidoptera, Cossidae), and meocuil (agave white worm, Aegiale hesperiaris Walker 1,856, Lepidoptera, Hesperiidae) are seasonally collected from the agricultural land and forest for food and medicine. Thus, their consumption might be regarded as support for biological plague control. However, in most countries (Mexico included), there is a lack of legislation about edible insects from harvesting to sacrifice and even their main safety aspects. So then, this research aims to provide an updated assessment of the potential use of agricultural pest insects as a sustainable alternative for food, considering current international legislative and ethical concerns about harvesting and consuming wild edible insects, focusing on some of the wild edible pest insects in Mexico.
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A comparative study on insect longevity: tropical moths do not differ from their temperate relatives. Evol Ecol 2022. [DOI: 10.1007/s10682-021-10150-9] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/04/2022]
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Hardy NB, Kaczvinsky C, Bird G, Normark BB. What We Don't Know About Diet-Breadth Evolution in Herbivorous Insects. ANNUAL REVIEW OF ECOLOGY EVOLUTION AND SYSTEMATICS 2020. [DOI: 10.1146/annurev-ecolsys-011720-023322] [Citation(s) in RCA: 29] [Impact Index Per Article: 7.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/09/2022]
Abstract
Half a million species of herbivorous insects have been described. Most of them are diet specialists, using only a few plant species as hosts. Biologists suspect that their specificity is key to their diversity. But why do herbivorous insects tend to be diet specialists? In this review, we catalog a broad range of explanations. We review the evidence for each and suggest lines of research to obtain the evidence we lack. We then draw attention to a second major question, namely how changes in diet breadth affect the rest of a species’ biology. In particular, we know little about how changes in diet breadth feed back on genetic architecture, the population genetic environment, and other aspects of a species’ ecology. Knowing more about how generalists and specialists differ should go a long way toward sorting out potential explanations of specificity, and yield a deeper understanding of herbivorous insect diversity.
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Affiliation(s)
- Nate B. Hardy
- Department of Entomology and Plant Pathology, Auburn University, Auburn, Alabama 36849, USA
| | - Chloe Kaczvinsky
- Department of Entomology and Plant Pathology, Auburn University, Auburn, Alabama 36849, USA
| | - Gwendolyn Bird
- Department of Entomology and Plant Pathology, Auburn University, Auburn, Alabama 36849, USA
| | - Benjamin B. Normark
- Department of Biology and Graduate Program in Organismic and Evolutionary Biology, University of Massachusetts, Amherst, Massachusetts 01003, USA
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Teder T. Phenological responses to climate warming in temperate moths and butterflies: species traits predict future changes in voltinism. OIKOS 2020. [DOI: 10.1111/oik.07119] [Citation(s) in RCA: 12] [Impact Index Per Article: 3.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 01/02/2023]
Affiliation(s)
- Tiit Teder
- Dept of Zoology, Inst. of Ecology and Earth Sciences, Univ. of Tartu Vanemuise 46 EE‐51003 Tartu Estonia
- Faculty of Environmental Sciences, Czech Univ. of Life Sciences Prague Kamýcká 129 Praha – Suchdol 165 00 Czech Republic
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Fischer TC, Michalski A, Hausmann A. Geometrid caterpillar in Eocene Baltic amber (Lepidoptera, Geometridae). Sci Rep 2019; 9:17201. [PMID: 31748672 PMCID: PMC6868187 DOI: 10.1038/s41598-019-53734-w] [Citation(s) in RCA: 3] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.6] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 08/04/2019] [Accepted: 10/22/2019] [Indexed: 11/22/2022] Open
Abstract
Lepidoptera have little fossilization potential due to the presence of delicate structures and hence are exceptional findings, even in ambers that allow their preservation in sufficient detail for interpretation. From Eocene Baltic amber, the volumetrically largest known deposit of amber, there has been no reliable report of any member of the Macrolepidoptera (informal group of higher moths and all butterflies). Any such lepidopteran fossil would provide insight into evolutionary processes during the Eocene, long after flowering plants had completed their initial radiation. Here, we report on a first geometrid caterpillar from Baltic amber which is described as the oldest evidence for the subfamily Ennominae (tribe Boarmiini) and as one of the oldest records of the currently mega-diverse family. The new finding provides an important calibration point for molecular clock analyses within the family Geometridae and predates the basal divergence of Boarmiini from 32–38 to 44 Mya. It also predates the occurrence of this highly specialized form of caterpillar locomotion that allows for rapid movement.
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Affiliation(s)
- Thilo C Fischer
- Thilo C. Fischer, SNSB - Bavarian State Collection of Zoology, Münchhausenstraße 21, D-81247, Munich, Germany.
| | - Artur Michalski
- Artur Michalski, private investigator, Ul.Mielczarskiego 2/1, 51-663, Wrocław, Polska, Poland
| | - Axel Hausmann
- Axel Hausmann, SNSB - Bavarian State Collection of Zoology, Münchhausenstraße 21, D-81247, Munich, Germany
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Holm S, Javoiš J, Molleman F, Davis RB, Õunap E, Roininen H, Tammaru T. No Indication of High Host-Plant Specificity in Afrotropical Geometrid Moths. JOURNAL OF INSECT SCIENCE (ONLINE) 2019; 19:5482269. [PMID: 31039585 PMCID: PMC6490970 DOI: 10.1093/jisesa/iez028] [Citation(s) in RCA: 3] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.6] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Figures] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 11/19/2018] [Indexed: 06/09/2023]
Abstract
Specificity is one of the fundamental concepts in ecology. Host specificity of phytophagous insects has been of particular interest because of its crucial role in diversification and life-history evolution. However, the majority of tropical insects remain insufficiently explored with respect to their host-plant relations. A lack of respective data is also hindering the debate over whether higher levels of host-plant specificity prevail in tropical insects compared to temperate ones. We investigated host-plant specificity of forest geometrid moths (Lepidoptera: Geometridae) in equatorial Africa using host-plant acceptability trials with neonate larvae, with the addition of field observations. We compare our experimental data to the (well-known) host-specificity patterns of closely related temperate (hemiboreal) species. Similarly to the temperate region, there were broadly polyphagous tropical species in several clades of Geometridae utilizing hosts belonging to different plant families. Phylogenetic comparative analysis returned no significant differences in host specificity between the two regions. Our study contributes to the evidence that host-plant specificity of herbivores is not necessarily substantially higher in tropical than temperate regions.
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Affiliation(s)
- Sille Holm
- Institute of Ecology and Earth Sciences, University of Tartu, Vanemuise, Tartu, Estonia
| | - Juhan Javoiš
- Institute of Ecology and Earth Sciences, University of Tartu, Vanemuise, Tartu, Estonia
| | - Freerk Molleman
- Department of Systematic Zoology, Institute of Environmental Biology, Faculty of Biology, A. Mickiewicz University, Poznań, Poland
| | - Robert B Davis
- Institute of Ecology and Earth Sciences, University of Tartu, Vanemuise, Tartu, Estonia
| | - Erki Õunap
- Institute of Ecology and Earth Sciences, University of Tartu, Vanemuise, Tartu, Estonia
- Institute of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences, Estonian University of Life Sciences, Tartu, Estonia
| | - Heikki Roininen
- Department of Environmental and Biological Sciences, Faculty of Science and Forestry, University of Eastern Finland, Joensuu, Finland
| | - Toomas Tammaru
- Institute of Ecology and Earth Sciences, University of Tartu, Vanemuise, Tartu, Estonia
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Javoiš J, Davis RB, Tammaru T. A comparative morphometric study of sensory capacity in geometrid moths. J Evol Biol 2019; 32:380-389. [DOI: 10.1111/jeb.13422] [Citation(s) in RCA: 9] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.8] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 04/05/2018] [Revised: 01/27/2019] [Accepted: 01/28/2019] [Indexed: 12/01/2022]
Affiliation(s)
- Juhan Javoiš
- Department of ZoologyInstitute of Ecology and Earth SciencesUniversity of Tartu Tartu Estonia
| | - Robert B. Davis
- Department of ZoologyInstitute of Ecology and Earth SciencesUniversity of Tartu Tartu Estonia
| | - Toomas Tammaru
- Department of ZoologyInstitute of Ecology and Earth SciencesUniversity of Tartu Tartu Estonia
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