Leafcutter or Atta ants live mostly in the tropics where they evolved in Central and South America.  As their name implies, they cut with scissor-like jaws fresh fragments of leaves from all sorts of plants and hoist them over their heads like a parasol to deliver to their underground nests.  

Figure 2.  A stream of Leafcutters carrying home the bounty

These nests can boast of being over 700 cubic feet in volume and house a society that constitutes a mega city with 8 million individuals! 

Figure 3.  A singular nest with  200 fungal farms scattered about in Brazil

 There, they mound the material in a big pile as a medium within which they cultivate and grow the fungus Lepiotaceae.  

Figure 4. A colony of Atta ants on the left feeding more leaves to the fungus garden to the right

Since many of the plants they collect have leaves containing lethal toxins like tannins and flavonoids, the ants rely entirely on the fungus to help neutralize the harmful chemicals.  Then, the ants eat the neutralizer.  Like cows that chew and swallow their food repetitively as they predigest their initially indigestible plant-based food with toxin-neutralizing saliva, the ant’s food also gets digested multiple times.  The ant first munches down the leaf into a pulp to feed to the fungus.  As a result, the fungus, in turn, synthesizes enzyme-rich clusters called gongylidia designed for the ant to eat, which over evolutionary time, the ant had learned to poop back out onto the leaf mound.

Figure 5.  from De Fine Licht et al, 2012

Far from insulting table manners, only by passing through the ant’s system can the gongylidia’s embedded enzyme Laccase be chemically free to break down the plant’s toxins, fit enough for the fungus to further enjoy and access more nutrients. The ant then harvests the satiated fungus, now fortified with sugars and proteins, and feeds the fungi to any of the millions of developing larvae in the nest.  Their lives are inextricably linked, co-evolving with one another over time.  Like the Ambrosia Beetle  we highlighted earlier this year with it’s tight link to fungi nesting in its head, these are all obligate symbionts and  cannot live without each other.  

But these symbionts don’t just let themselves be plainly satisfied.  Nay, they demand primo quality experience.  Enhancing the mutualistic partnership is a nitrogen-fixing bacteria that also resides inside in the leaf mound, infusing the medium with supplemental nitrogen. 

 Similar to the N-fixing bacteria on legume nodules, these bacteria take nitrogen gas amply available from the air and chemically convert it into a form that plants and fungi can absorb for healthy nutrition, a crucial service given that absorbable nitrogen is a severely limiting but necessary chemical for life in the environment.  Rather than hog all the nitrogen, the fungal-ant pair, share some of it with the surrounding soils in the form of compost made from the waste products that the ants discard on the outskirts of their nest.  This compost contains up to 26 times more nitrogen than other leaf litter piles in their habitat.  As a result, they help feed other neighboring plants and build up the local plant biodiversity.

Maintaining a healthy fungal farm is no easy task, as the garden is always susceptible to pathogens. To keep these threats at bay, one more amazing creature is thrown into the mutual symbiont network.  As if three just were not enough! (Mind you, a 4-way network is more than any other symbiotic consortium we’ve addressed through BIOTA).

One more bacterial ally is Actinomycete bacteria.  Fully covering the bodies of the worker ants that maintain the fungal farm, they secrete an antibiotic that effectively prevents invaders like the harmful fungus Escovopsis from drowning out the ants’ beneficial Lepiotaceae partner. 

 Figure 6. Bacteria powdered worker ants maintaining the garden

Amazingly, this Actinobacteria is the same bacterial strain notorious for nearly half of all the antibiotics we use in human medicine.  Although humans have only discovered the application of antibiotics for less than a century, Leafcutter ants have been beneficiaries of their services for over 10 million years!  

Video on Leafcutter ants as hyper-cool masters of mutualism

How have they been able to succeed for so long, especially in the face of very real risks that modern human medicine grapples with;  antibiotic resistance?  All over the world, a number of pathogens to humans as well as domesticated agricultural animals have developed genetic resistances to antibacterial drugs, forcing us to develop newer drugs as a counterattack.  Much of the failures of these drugs have stemmed from the overprescription and improper drug use, creating conditions that are driving the bacteria to build up an extraordinary defense.  Since bacteria reproduce so quickly and in such large numbers, they can develop just the right mutations for getting an edge over whatever drugs we fabricate, making time of the essence.  Being ahead of the game and developing antibiotics fast enough to keep up with the rapidly changing bacteria seems to be precisely what Actinobacteria and the ants have been doing so well for millions of years.  

Another more sustainable farming practice is the transplanting of robust fungal farms in areas where the soil is richly nourished and has a rich soil microbial base.  The more biologically active and diverse, the greater the possibilities for resisting attacks. 

The world of ancient Fungal farmers offers many interesting life lessons as well as possible leads on how we can grow food more sustainably ourselves. Building biologically rich systems, composting, and forging wise  links with other biotic kingdoms may prove fruitful.  

BIOTA Fan Spotlight!

This week we spoke Tanisha McClain who hails from one of our BIOTA team locations Merced, California on her thoughts about symbiosis and ants in the kitchen:

What is/are your current occupation(s), vocation(s), proclivities and  hobbies?    My current occupation is Bartender/Chef.  My hobbies are creating and eating great food and beverages, watching foreign films and shows(Bollywood, French, Korean Dramas, Japanese Dramas etc), writing poetry and pondering life and the human condition

How did you hear about BIOTA and what interests you about the program? I heard about the program through my friend Sabah.  Upon researching what it actually was, I was interested because I like learning more about the world we live in and the environment we inhabit.  Knowing more allows us to take steps to lessen our negative impact on this environment.

What symbiotic relationships; parasitic, mutual and/or commensal rivets you and why? Since I am a chef, the symbiotic relationships that rivet me most are essentially food based.  The farmer protecting the crop and giving it fertilizer to have a higher yield.  This benefits the plants because they continue to thrive and propagate more crop, it also benefits the livestock as well as other humans consuming it.  I also like the relationship between bees and flowers. :)

What comes to mind when you consider ants? fungi? Or bacteria   When I think about ants, it’s unfortunately usually in regards to hoping that they don’t come into the kitchen during the summer.  When I think about Fungi, I think about how vast a system they seem to have and the fact that there are a great many different varieties.  When I think about bacteria, it’s usually in the realm of trying to keep harmful bacteria out of the equation for all the clients that are going to consume the food.

Thanks much, Tanisha!  As for the Leafcutter’s complex symbiotic tale, they, too seem to share with you the diligence of a serious chef.  With the help of beneficial bacteria, they’ve achieved for millions of years to create a highly sanitary kitchen of sorts for their prime food source of fungi.  How cool is that?

References:

De Fine Licht, Schiott, Rogowska-Wrzesinska, Nygaard, Roepstorff & Boomsma. 2012. Laccase detoxification mediates the nutritional alliance between leaf-cutting ants and fungus-garden symbionts. PNAShttp://dx.doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1212709110

Keim, Brandon. (2008) Could Ants Hold the Key to Sustainable Agriculture?. WIRED.http://www.wired.com/2008/03/could-ants-hold/ Retrieved May 20, 2016.

Keim, Brandon. (2009) Farmer ants Fertilize their Gardens with Bacteria. WIRED. http://www.wired.com/2009/11/ant-gardening/ Retrieved May 20, 2016.

Merchant, Michael.  Insects in the City: Texas Leaf Cutting Ant. Texas A&M Agrilife Extension. https://citybugs.tamu.edu/factsheets/landscape/ants/ent-1002/Retrieved May 23, 2016.

Pinto-Tomas, Adrian et al. (2009).  Symbiotic Nitrogen Fixation in the Fungus Gardens of Leaf-Cutter Ants. Science.10.1126/1178294. 1120-1123

Young, Ed. (2009) Leafcutter Ants use bacteria to fertilize fungus gardens. National Geographic. http://phenomena.nationalgeographic.com/2009/11/21/leafcutter-ants-rely-on-bacteria-to-fertilise-their-fungus-gardens/. Retrieved May 20, 2016

Within the lice family, there are 5,000 described species and they infect almost every species of bird and mammal.  Each host species has its very own and typically only one louse.  But among humans, though, we harbor two distinct genera Pediculus that includes two closely related subspecies Head Lice (Pediculus humanus capitus) and Body Lice (Pediculus humanus corporis), and Phthiris or Pubic Lice.  We’ll dissect why so many lousy types exist within our species later on.  

As adults, Head Lice are incredibly small, no more than 2-3 mm in length. They have small claws and nest exclusively near the back of the neck and behind the ears, and as adults, feast on blood 5 times day.  They lay their eggs, called nits, at the base of hair follicles using a cement-like material to keep the eggs firmly attached and close enough for a head’s radiating heat to incubate them.

Figure 2. Human lice. (a) Head louse (Pediculus humanus). (b) Nit (egg) of head louse. With permission from http:// www. headlice. org. (c) Pubic louse or 'crab' (Pthirus pubis). (a) and (c) are by Vince Smith and are reproduced with permission. Accessed from http://jbiol.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/jbiol114#CR4

Body Lice are slightly larger, up to 3.3 mm in size, and unlike the head louse, lays its eggs in the clothes of an infected person at the seams of one’s shirts or under collars.  It crawls across the skin, though, to feast.  The smallest of the lousy three is the pubic louse, 1.1-1.8 mm in length. It spends its days in the possibly cozy comfort of the private areas. While they are usually found mightily gripping pubic hair with a larger set of menacing claws, they can also be found in armpits, eyebrows, mustaches, and even eyelashes.

Figure 3.  A pubic lice infested eyelash 

Most often, this insect group is most often contracted through sexual contact with a loused person.

Unlike the whale lice we referenced a few months ago, human lice are wingless non-jumping insects rather than a crustacean and are an obligate parasite.  As such they absolutely cannot survive without shacking up near the warm base of their hosts’ hair follicles and sucking their blood for food.  It’s a one-way benefit to the louse and whether it’s a Head or Pubic louse will render its human host irritated with obnoxious but not deadly, hateful itching.

Body Lice  can transmit deadly infectious diseases like typhus (famous for wiping out 93% of Napoleon Bonaparte’s regiment in the War of 1812 in Russia) and moderately serious diseases like Trench Fever and louse-borne relapsing fever.  Victims of Body lice most commonly lack good hygiene, and/or may live in cramped conditions with limited opportunities for bathing and cleaning clothes, as in unsanitary prisons, combat zones, and refugee camps.  In retrospect, these diseases played significant roles in shaping the history of human power plays and wars, representing the ultimate arbiter over which armies and empires would triumph and which would fall.

Figure 5-  An early 20th century Typhus-Awareness poster  of death shaing hands with a louse.  Printed in Russia during the First Wolrd War at a time when disease epidemics swept the country.

 Head lice, on the other hand, is replete throughout the world, affecting nearly all income classes and all demographics because contracting head lice has nothing to do with hygiene.  It is the universal, everyone's-fair-game lousy parasite, except, in the US, they appear to be less common among Black Americans since louse claws have difficulty clutching their glorious hair.  The most common age group to catch head lice is among elementary school children who with lots of hair-to-hair contact provide really easy avenues for lice to crawl from one head to the next.  Without good preventative measures, 6-12 million cases of kids lice infestation erupt every year, causing much grief and embarrassment from flawed assumptions of being dirty. Still, in all, the infection/infestation trend has been on the rise.

But where did these lice come from and why do we have three types with distinct niches on our bodies? In comparing the DNA sequences of our human lice trio with that our closest primate relatives we’ve unlocked clues to the origins of our parasites and to the mystery behind when we became naked apes and started to morph into our modern cotton, wooly, feather, silken, and polyester-polyurethane co-polymer draped selves.

Figure 6- A cool short video on the intertwined destinies of humans and lice,  through an evolutionary lense

By observing the quantity and location of genetic mutations between DNA sequences, scientists have deduced when humans and chimps split off or diverged from a common ancestor and when each species evolved their own type of Pediculus parasite (ca. 4-6 million years ago).  This process of a dual evolution between two closely associated species, such as a parasite and a host, is called co-evolution.  Furthermore, scientists have also traced the divergence of the original human lice parasite Pediculus humanus species into body and head lice subspecies to about 100,000-170,000 years ago.  This period is strongly hypothesized to coincide with the development of clothes , a ‘technology’ that radically helped set the stage for early humans to begin migrating out of Africa to colder climate regions, and for body lice to adapt to our newfound clothed lifestyles.  But wearing clothes wasn’t just something pulled out of magician's hat, but motivated in part by the increasing loss of body hair from the early human body.

In this case, evolutionary biologists have linked the time when our human ancestors lost their body hair to the origins of the human pubic louse.  Through molecular studies of human pubic lice with that of our great ape relatives, scientists have found striking similarities not with chimpanzees, but this time with gorilla pubic lice.  

Figure 7  .  A man apparently named John being groomed by a group of gorillas at Bwindi National Park in Uganda. 

  Although our common ancestor with gorillas lived 7 million years ago, humans and gorillas shared a more recent common louse ancestor about 3.3 million years ago.

Figure 8. Diagram showcasing time periods in millions of years (MYA) when species of parasite and hosts diverged from their common ancestors  

 This has led us to believe that around that time through close contact, a gorilla louse switched hosts from their hairy bods  to us, the naked apes.  With time, these parasites  adapted to the most hospitable (groin-ish) place on our bodies.  Exactly how the louse landed on early humans’ bodies from the gorilla is not well understood, but scientists speculate that humans might’ve had lots of gorilla contact through eating them or bunking up in their sleeping nests.

This knack for adaptation is what has made them so successful, and this is closely tied to they way they reproduce and their habits. All these lousy types undergo fairly similar life cycles, starting out from an egg that hatches into a nymph, and after 9 days and three successive molts, the nymph balloons into an adult. 

Figure 9  Lice Lifecycle 

With a high egg laying rate at ~ 10 eggs per day and an adult female surviving up to a month, it doesn’t take long for an infestation to put us in a hairy situation.  In recent years, scientists have monitored an epidemic infestation taken the country by storm, a crisis we’ve associated with not very careful ways of eliminating them from the schools, camps, daycare facilities and many other places where kids gather around en masse.

Figure 10- ‘Catching the ‘Cooties’ from the playground is pretty common phenom, you know what I mean.  ‘Cooties’ was a term  British soilders made more commonplace in the early 20th century in reference to the body lice that was near rampant among soldies in the WWI battle field trenches.  

For the past few decades, a number of different types of pesticides have been manufactured and marketed around the country and world to combat lice, including the now-banned biocide DDT, as shown below once administered for body lice, and the chemicals malathion, pyrethroids, permethrin, spinosad, ivermectin, and Lindane for head lice.

Figure 11- An American soldier getting an hefty dose of DDT pesticide squirted onto his body to supppress the spread of typhus, a disease carried by Body lice. 

While most of these above chemicals have been effective in killing adult lice, they do not successfully kill the nits, thus forcing one to  wait for about 10 days until the eggs hatch and another treatment can occur.  However, excessive use of these pesticides over time, both in volume and frequency for treating one’s hair has rendered them completely ineffectual and has led to the creation of SUPER LICE. 

Figure 12. A  magnified image of a head louse

 Within the span of two decades or so, studies have shown that long-term use of popular over-the-counter drugs made of Pyrethroids and permethrins, have made lice develop what are called knockout mutations- mutations that have given the bug the upper hand, the trump hand, the whip hand and supremacy with a genetic resistance to the drugs.   A study released this past year in the U.S. had shown that people treated with these chemicals in at least 25 out of 30 states had lice that were totally insensitive to the originally toxic effects of the biocide and were 100% resistant.

Figure 13- States painted red demontrate 100% lice resitance to pyrethroids.  Oddly, Michigan was the only state out of the 30 states tested that still had lice susceptible to the insecticides, something which researchers consider an anomaly. 

  Further, chemicals like Lindane have been found to be severely toxic and a health threat to the human brain and the nervous systems of chemically sensitive and vulnerable groups of people including the young, elderly, pregnant women, and folks with asthma, as well as other animals. Malathion which is applied topically to wet hair is also highly flammable when exposed to heat, so avoid using a blow dryer or it might set yer head aflame.

A more promising, safe, fast, cost effective and creative treatment measure is an invention that looks like a hybrid vacuum and blowdryer mutant superhero and takes a more ecological approach to eliminating them.

FIgure 14. The LousebusterTM

Figure 15-  The experience is touted to be a little bit more relaxing and massage-like than it appears. http://www.ausdielaus.com/lousebuster.htm

Figure 16.  Kind of like this.

Figure 17. Or this. 

Crafted by evolutionary parasitologist Biology Professor Dale Clayton and his team of researchers from the University of Utah they developed a device called the LouseBuster, now called AirAlle that releases a large volume of hot air at approximately 55 degrees C (131 degrees F)  to dry out the heat-sensitive lice.  The hot air after a 30-minute treatment  effectively dries out both adults and eggs alike with a 95% success rate. Another compelling effect is that it has no risk of lice developing genetic resistances which would require  a complete modification of their water physiology, a mutation which cannot alter in any realistic time frame other than….maybe thousands of years and the right selective pressures.

Lice have provided much to scratch our heads over but now also are providing an interesting window into our past.

Here’s a very endearing video of the late comedian Robin Williams having a fun time with Koko, a gorilla who is fluent in American Sign Language. 

References: 

Burkhart, CG. Relationship of Treatment-Resistant Head Lice to theSsafety and Efficacy of Pediculicides. Department of Internal Medicine, Medical College of Ohio at Toledo.  Mayo Clin Proc. 2004 May. 79 (5): 661-6. Retrieved April 24. 2016 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15132409.

El-Showk, Sedeer. Learning from Lice. Scitable-Nature Education. 2015 September 28, Retrieved April 23, 2016. http://www.nature.com/scitable/blog/accumulating-glitches/learning_from_lice

Facts of Lice. Family Resource Center. Lice Clinics of America: Urgent Care for Lice Removal. Retrieved April 23, 2016.  http://liceclinicsofamerica.com/resources/

Ghose, Tia. Lice Genes Reveal Human Migration. Livescience. 2013 February 27. Retrieved April 23. 2016. http://www.livescience.com/27523-lice-genes-reveal-human-migration.html

Goates, BM, Sarah Bush and Dale Clayton et al. An Effective Nonchemical Treatment for Head Lice: A Lot of Hot Air. Pediatrics: Official Journal of the American Academy of Pediatrics. 2006: 118:1962

Kittler, Ralf et al. Molecular Evolution of Pediculus humanus and the Origin of Clothing. Current Biology. 2003 August 19, Vol 13, 1414-1417.

Lice and Human Evolution. Nova ScienceNOW. 2011 February 16. Retrieved April 23, 2016. http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/evolution/lice.html

The LousBuster Returns: Head Lice Shrivel in Study as Device Hits the Market. Campus Life from the U, University of Utah. 2010 December 6.  Retrieved April 23, 2016. http://archive.unews.utah.edu/news_releases/the-lousebuster-returns/

Manacher, Irene. Lice Resistant to Common Treatments in Many States. CBS News 2015 August Retrieved April 24, 2016.  http://www.cbsnews.com/news/head-lice-resistant-to-pyrethroid-common-treatment/

Nacht, Sheri and Dale Clayton. Interview by Robert Siegel. The Key to Keeping Lice at Bay? A Lot of Hot Air. All things Considered. NPR Radio 91.3 WYSO.

Norris, Scott. Gorillas Gave Pubic Lice to Humans, DNA Study Reveals. National Geographic. 2007 March 16. retrieved April 23, http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2007/03/070316-gorilla-lice.html

Parasites-Lice. Center for Disease Control and Prevention. http://www.cdc.gov/parasites/lice/ Retrieved April 24, 2016

Rhodes, Jesse. Cootie Catchers Say Lice Reveal Lots About Early Humans. Smithsonian.com. 2010 September. retrieved April 23, 2016.retrieved April 23, 2016.http://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/cootie-catchers-say-lice-reveal-lots-about-early-humans-34883996/  

Tidy, Colin. Pubic and Body Lice. Patient: Trusted Medical Information and Support. 2013 October 18. 2991 (v24) retrieved april 23, 2016. http://patient.info/doctor/pubic-and-body-lice

Veracx, Aurelie and Didier Raoult. Biology and Genetics of Human Head and Body Lice. Trends in Parasitology. CellPress.  2012 December. Vol 28, No. 12.

Weiss, Robin. Apes, Lice and Prehistory. Journal of Biology. February  2009 8:20 Retrieved April 23, 2016. http://jbiol.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/jbiol114#CR4

As seasonal, and ever so ephemera! wetlands, Vernal Pools are ecosystems where winter and spring rains fill up shallow basins with water that ultimately dry out completely by the summer and autumn.   A Vernal Pool site could transition from an inundated pond to a dried-out crackly basin once or a number of times throughout a given year.  Such radically different conditions have over time introduced and supported a rich diversity of life that have adapted to a vernal pool’s three main phases; a Wet Phase, a Flowering Phase, and a Dry Phase. 

 During the Wet Phase of Winter and Spring, water builds up in shallow depressions of a soil-type called hardpan that is a ridiculously dense, and waterproof clay or sandstone medium.   

Figure 2. A Vernal Pool in Proctor Valley in San Diego County, California- Courtesy Chaparral Lands Conservancy 

The presence of water triggers an explosive symphony of aquatic creatures to bounce to life from dormancy.  An array of micro and macroscopic creatures like bacteria,  protozoans, tadpole shrimp, fairie shrimp, algae, and aquatic insects break-out of something like a preservation capsule; seeds or cysts that were buried in the soil and protected them from the drought season of the previous year’s hot summer and autumn.    

 Figure3. kind of like... dino-sponge capsules

They all rely on one another for food.  Some produce photosynthetic energy for themselves like algae.  Others (called detritivores) feed on layers of dead leaves and animals that have settled in the pool basin from last year, while blobby amoeba, on the other hand, engulf bacteria, or the algae alive.

Figure 4. A magnified Fairy Shrimp, 7 hours old!- 

Figure 5. Magnified Tadpole Shrimp

Figure 6. Water Tiger Beetle starry-eyed and devouring the day’s catch.

As the weeks pass, dozens of other larger aquatic species and birds appear with frogs, snakes and salamanders taking the stage and diversifying the cast of frenzy eaters in the pool. However, In perfect timing and synchrony with the pond’s dynamic nature, they all race to complete their life cycles before the pool inevitably becomes parched and bone-dry.  In comes the Flower Phase!  

Figure 7. A Field of ‘Downingia bella’ flowers gradually taking over the footprint of a pond in Ventura County, California. Courtesy Bill Bouton

As warm weather arrives with the Spring, the pool’s water starts to evaporate and recede.  All the while, the seeds of  vernal pool-adapted plants begin to  sprout from the muddy bottoms, unleashing  splashes of colorful flowers that burst along the shrinking edge of the water. 

Figure 8. A ring of Goldfield flowers outlining the edges of the shrinking pool at the Herbert Preserve in Toulare County, California

Within a month, over 200 plant species can crowd out a pool, and each pool, even if a few miles apart can host a unique mixture of a variety of species.  Also, as time passes and the microclimate further warms up, the flower makeup of a given site itself can change from week to week as each species carries different water and heat tolerance levels.  The vast majority of these plants are endemic, or evolved specifically to the extreme wet and drying periods unique to these areas and may not be found anywhere else. Within California vernal pools, between the months of March and early May, one may be bedazzled by native Wooly Meadowfoam, Water Starwort, Coyote Thistle and Goldfield flowers.  

Figure 9. The dwarf wooly meadowfoam (Limnanthes floccosa0, is endemic California native species found nowhere else in the world.

Figure 10. Water Starwort (Callitriche marginata)  that is a threatened species

Figure 11. The showy display of Purple beehive-like flower clusters of a Coyote Thistle. Courtesy Pete Veilleux 

Through symbiosis with a winged pollinator, for thousands of years not only have these flowers evolved a specialization to badass vernal pool challenges, but they’ve also mastered the art of reproduction.  Species within the genera of California’s  Goldfields, Yellow Carpets,  Meadowfoam and  Downingia have developed relationships with bees that are  Solitary and each has their very own bee that strictly pollinates only them, however, other types of bees may also serve as their pollinators.   Bees that  pollinate only one type of species or genus are called Oligolectic.  In return for the pollen that provides food for the bees’ offspring, the plant gains the genetic diversity that it needs to support a healthy batch of seeds for the new year. 

But what defines a solitary bee? Unlike bees that form large colonies and may have a single fertile queen and a cooperative workforce that labors to feed her and her many offspring, solitary bees live by themselves.  Each female is fertile and builds her own nest without making honey or beeswax.  With only a year-long lifespan, most solitary bees of California’s vernal pools spend the majority of their lives underground in upland mounds along the perimeter of the pools. They look like black flies but have hair on their mid joints that serve to pick up pollen grains that stick to each other and form sacs. 

Figure 12. A solitary bee perched on a Meadowfoam

Their life cycles are perfectly timed with the blooming stages of the flowers, a phenomenon of amazing precision that is still a mystery to scientists.

The moment flowers like  Goldfields unleash their seas of golden petals, adult males and females dig themselves out of the ground, where they have been developing from an egg, in search of a mate.  After mating, a female starts to dig out a tunnel about 4 inches deep and from that tunnel burrows out several small chambers that look like arched fingers.

Figure 13. A diagram of possible chamber designs

 She lines the walls of each of these chambers, no more than about a dozen in total with a waxy coating to prevent mold or fungus from attacking what’ll become a  baby bee room.  In the bottom of the chamber, she plants a sticky dough ball of pollen. 

Figure 14. A solitary bee’s neatly planted pollen ball

She then deposits a solitary egg right on top.  

Figure 15. The “Aussie Burger with the Lot”, or rather...

Figure 16. This babe’s set!

 The egg will hatch into a larva that will feast on that dough ball that will give it just enough energy to sustain it for an entire year! As it metamorphoses into an adult, it patiently waits underground for nearly 6-7 months for the next flower bloom to dig itself out, find a mate, reproduce, and do that life cycle thing in the footsteps of its ancestors.  

Figure 17. A developing larvae-

After  a new generation of eggs have been laid, the last phase of a year in the life of a vernal pool takes place; the Dry Phase. 

Figure 18. A Parched vernal pool in Butte County, California.   

With temperatures hitting over 100 degrees in Fahrenheit, the flowers dry up as do the soils that supported them, but left behind are the seeds, spores, and cysts that will unleash a new batch of life next wet cycle season. During the dry phase, the site is not barren of life, but still thrives with gophers, coyotes, hawks, seed-eating birds and toads that seek shelter in rodent burrows. 

Vernal Pools are home to some of the last native grasslands in California where over 90% have been destroyed in the face of rapid urbanization, pollution, and agriculture.  By protecting these places, like the UC Merced Vernal Pool and Grassland Reserve we can continue to explore the strange and beautiful webs of life and ways to help sustain their health.

References: 

Photos: [1], [2], [3], [4], [5], [6], [7], [8], [9], [10], [11], [12], [13], [14], [15], [16], [17], [18]

-Thorp, Ryan and J.M Leong. 1998. ”Specialist Bee Pollinators of Showy Vernal Pool  Flowers”  IN: Witham CW, Nauder ET,  Belk D, et al. (Editors). Ecology, Conservation and Management of Vernal pool Ecosystems Proceedings from a 1996 Conference.  Sacramento CA: California Native Plant Society,

-’Vernal Pools (Prairie City SVRA)’.  Off-Highway Motor Vehicle Recreation. 2016 State of California http://ohv.parks.ca.gov/?page_id=27452. retrieved April 9, 2016

-Thorp, Robbin W, “Vernal pool Flowers and tier Specialist Bee Pollinators“. California Vernal Pools: A Collection of Information and Resources. http://www.vernalpools.org/Thorp/ . retrieved April 9, 2016

-’Vernal Pool Goldfields’. Sacramento Splash. http://www.sacsplash.org/post/vernal-pool-goldfields. retrieved April 9, 2016

-‘Ecosystem’. Merced Vernal pools and grassland reserve. UC Merced Unviersity of California, Merced. 2016. http://vernalpools.ucmerced.edu/ecosystem. retrieved April 9, 2016

-Ross, Edward S. "Bee Bank". California Wild: The Magazine of the California Academy of Sciences. http://researcharchive.calacademy.org/calwild/2002winter/stories/beebank.html. retrieved April 9, 2016

‘The Three Phases of the Vernal Pool Ecosystem’. Splash .http://www.sacsplash.org/post/three-phases-vernal-pool-ecosystem. retrieved April 9, 2016

‘Chapter Introduction: Vernal pools’. http://www.blm.gov/or/resources/recreation/tablerock/files/vernal_intro.pdf.  retrieved April 9, 2016

Imagine if you will a cow freely roaming and grazing in a pasture, munching on forbes and grasses on a sunny sedating day.  Imagine it in a vast wildflower-blooming field, and you see its marshmallow-soft skinned lips and jaw hypnotically circling in motion, shredding and chewing from side-to-side clumps of grass between its molars.  Imagine as you try to stealthily approach it, your unforgiving feet step on some twigs that send out a crushing snap! startling our once blithe multi-stomach chambered beast.  It immediately freezes its jaw and with vast deep black abyss-looking eyes stars at you… as you stare back at it.   You’re both locked in each other’s gaze. 

Figure 2.  A Texas Longhorn- photo credit: Dave Welling

You barely breathe.  It stands unshaken, until… finally! it picks up munching again…for another 5-7 hours… and on top of that for another 8-11 hours, re-chews its partly digested food, lovingly called.. the cud.

Figure 3. Diagram of a cow’s double digestion process

When not thinking about a cow’s fate to the slaughterhouse or to milking stations, it may seem like all that cows do is mind a seemingly eternal quest to eat, to lounge about, to regurgitate and re-chew cud and belch away.  It's a fairly true state of being, and when well-fed, offered nice pastures and fellow cow company for the ‘cudding’, they seem like the most docile and big friendly chums.

Figure 4.  

But! Are they also drivers of widespread ecosystem collapse and species extinction?   

Figure 5. 

If we carefully examine the roster of all the species believed to have existed over the past 500 years since colonists introduced the cow to the Americas, we’d find a lot missing.  We’d also find a lot of new faces that kicked out many original species from the millions of acres of grazed land in a cow’s wake.

As our population increases and more diets become more meat-centered, the cattle industry has been building more and more cow lots to meet the growing demand for beef all over the world.  In the U.S. alone, over 42% of total land area is rangeland for cows (Ditomaso 2000).   In the process, though, the rise and reign of the cow is causing severe global environmental problems, including rampant deforestation, desertification (the transformation of once fertile lands into desert), soil erosion, water pollution from excessive manure loads, and staggering species-loss.  Over 80% of deforestation in the Amazon is razed over for Cattle ranching.  To create an ever starker visual, every 6 seconds, 1 acre of tropical rainforest is wiped out for pasturelands (Iacurci 2014).

Figure 6. 

Addressing its global impact behooves us to look more deeply into the history of cattle. To keep it close to BIOTA’s site focus on California’s vernal pools, we’ll examine how cows have affected California’s coastal prairies and grasslands and paved the way for aggressive, self-sowing invasive grasses.

Figure 7.

If we go way back, the first grasslands in the Californian region took root over 3 million years ago (3MYA) in response to climate and millions of years of land movement.  However, during the geologic period called the Pleistocene Epoch, (2.58 MY-12,000 YA) gigantic tromping mammals called Megafauna started to migrate into the Americas after scaling across a huge land mass called the Bering Land strait that connects North America to Asia (this land bridge is currently under water).  Their presence helped wage dramatic changes to the structure of the grasslands (Immel-Jeffery 2013).

Figure 8.  A fancy rendering of Mammoths grazing in the background, and mega-carnivores hanging out at a watering hole.

Herbivores (mammals with a plant-based diet) like Mammoths, Mastodons, ancient Elk, gigantic Sloths, Oxen, Three-toed Horses and Zebras helped trigger the co-evolution of a diversity of annual and perennial plants that developed in response to their eating behaviors, either through Grazing or Browsing.  Grazers, like modern-day Bison, Elk, Cows and Sheep, primarily feed on grasses, have specialized broad muzzles and four chambered stomachs to break down the tough tissues. Browsers, contrarily, feed on leaves, and small buds, and have narrow muzzles like Deer, and Horses.

How they walked and if they were keen to trample a lot also affected the evolution of new vegetation.  In the North coast of California, Mammoths were a major force that in all their stomping about and hearty grazing wiped out the existing forests, changing them, through their collective eating habits into grasslands.  An explosion in wildlife diversity occurred over the millennia, with a staggering variety of herbivores, carnivores and scavengers including Ice Age bison, pre-historic lions, the American Cheetah, and mega-sized condors called Merriam’s Teratornis.

By 11,000YA, humans, following the trail of these wooly beasts, finally made their debut into the Americas and set off another massive change to the ecosystem; the Megafauna Massacre.  Nearly all of the iconic big creatures vanished and while climate change, exploding comets, and the spread of diseases played a role in their sweeping disappearance, the majority of scientists say, hands-down, humans hunted them to extinction within a mere 1,000 years (Immel-Jeffrey 2013).  

Figure 9. The plush descendants of the wooly mammoths

The remaining creatures like Elk, Pronghorn, and Bison and a slew of others continued to thrive alongside indigenous peoples who helped further shape and maintain the grasslands for thousands of years, using the plants for food and various materials.  One maintenance method included the frequent use of fire that helped increase the quality and variety of grasslands plants, all the while suppressing certain types of trees, and shrubs that would’ve otherwise have had an opportunity to emerge.

With the invasion of the Spaniards in the late 18th century and subsequent colonization, though, they radically changed the composition of the grasslands as they imposed totally different land management practices, suppressed fire regimens, and introduced their domesticated creatures.  In come THE COW.

Figure 10.  Cud-lipped and a saliva-d cow jowl

Following the violent removal of vast numbers of indigenous people and the take over of the coastal prairies, colonists set free their cattle, sheep and horses to feast on the incredibly nutrient rich and productive grasses, unleashing a myriad of ecosystem breakdowns.

Species Loss and Invasion:

Since then, the cultivation of farms introduced new crops of plants, both intentionally and unintentionally.  Loads of seeds of other foreign plants like Yellow Star-thistle  or Cheatgrass were accidentally carried over to the region from contaminated alfalfa seed bags or that tagged along on their livestock’s fur or within their digestive systems.

Figure 11. Yellow Start thistle in bloom

It has an advantage over native plants because it matures earlier in the season.  Its roots rapidly grow as far as 3 feet down into the soil stealing water and nutrients that the native plants need to survive the hot summer. Yellow starthistle degrades wildlife habitat and chokes out desirable species with ruthless indifference. ‘Chewing disease’ results when horses eat yellow starthistle. This disease affects their nervous system and is usually fatal.

As the new grazers spread across the region, the livestock themselves helped sow these seeds from their manure and many of these seed bombs took off like wildfire.  They aggressively spread throughout vast tracts of land, changing the vegetational and animal species makeup of the grasslands as their main food sources disappeared.  

The combination of heavy overgrazing by livestock and introduction of non-native plants displaced the hearty species-rich, mostly native perennial bunchgrasses to, in many cases, lower-quality, low species-count annuals that ironically livestock don't often favor and may even be toxic. 

Figure 12.  Desertification in action

Throughout California and the western US, native grasses like Needle-and-Thread grass, Squirrel Tail, Great Basin Wild Rye, Bluebunch wheatgrass, Sandberg Bluegrass and Idaho fescue were overgrazed and out-competed by winter annual grasses and shrubs.  This type of behavior where a plant successfully takes over a resource,  and establishes itself without human assistance to the detriment of other neighboring native plants is called an Invasive Plant.   Some like Spotted knapweed or Dyer’s woad are known to develop deep taproots that suck out all the available water in the soil, starving out other neighboring native plants. State and federal governments have called these plants Noxious that pose a severe threat to livestock, agriculture as well as native species and have placed a bounty to eradicate them.

Fire –Suppression: 

Adding tinder to the flames of destabilizing change  was the absence of a frequent fire regimen that native grasses co-evolved with over millenia.   This has resulted in many cases the invasion of more fire-prone plants like Cheatgrass. 

Figure 13.  Cheatgrass 

With livestock eating too much of grass to nearly the bare ground, cheatgrass  has thrived on such heavily disturbed soils, unlike native plants.  As a result, they have spread and triggered wildly severe fire sprees that have harmed native forbes and grasses that have not enough time to recover.   Life a vicious cycle, the cheatgrass feeds on this type of system, dropping its seeds before a fire, and quickly sprouting afterward, only to make dense stands that are perfect tinder for another ignition.  The plant is all over California and has spread all over the US, and many other continents.

Among the most famous and iconic large mammals driven to extinction by cattle includes the once notorious California Grizzly Bear where predator-control policies allowed every last bear up until  1924 to be hunted down.  It’s legacy now rests on the California flag. 

Figure 14.  

According to the U.S. Forest Service,  the lack of a more ecologically healthy livestock management system has threatened or endangered upwards of 175 species that are still hanging in there.

In the face of so much foot-shooting for the sake of hamburgers and milk, however, some very creative interventions are being practiced to both protect native species and habitats while making cattle raising more sustainable.  One such measure is called Prescribed Grazing or Conservation Grazing.  These methods seek to use cattle in ways that both help manage the spread of invasives while encouraging the re-establishment of native grasses and forbes.  Scientists in collaboration with  ranchers and farmers are working together to create a win-win by helping restore habitat for other native plants and animals while also, enhancing the quality and diversity of plants for healthier livestock.  By appropriately timing cows’ grazing periods so they avoid eating too many of the native  grasses, or with respect to invasives-control, graze on them when  the invasives are at a stage of development when most vulnerable, researchers have achieved amazing results. In one study of 72 vernal pools in Eastern Sacremento California, researchers discovered that pools where 5 years worth of moderate grazing was held  helped bring in more native species and effectively suppress invasives than sites where either no grazing was held at all.   

Through collaboration, and wholistic thinking with cows, we might just bring  milk a  more fruitful future.   

References: 

Photos and Figures: [1], [2], [3], [4], [5], [6], [7], [8], [9], [10], [11], [12], [13], [14]

“World Deforestation Slows Down as more Forests are Better Managed”. Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. September 2015 http://www.fao.org/news/story/en/item/326911/icode/

"How to Manage Pests: Pests in Gardens and Landscapes".  University of California Agriculture  and Natural Resources. Statewide Integrated Pest Management Program. November 2007. http://www.ipm.ucdavis.edu/PMG/PESTNOTES/pn74139.html

Tu et al. “Grazing”. Weed Control Methods Handbook.  the Nature Conservancy. April 2001. www.invasive.org/gist/products/handbook/04.grazing.doc

Germano, David et al. “Effects of Grazing and Invasive Grasses on Desert Vertebrates in California”. Management and Conservation. The Journal of Wildlife Management. 76 (4); 2012.  670-682

Marty, Jaymee. “Effects of Cattle Grazing on Diversity in Ephemeral Wetlands”. Conservation Biology. Society for Conservation Biology. October 2004. 1626-1632.

Ditomaso, Joseph. “Invasive Weeds in Rangelands: Species, Impacts and Management”. Weed Science. Weed Science Society of America. 2000, Vol. 48:2:255-265. https://library.ndsu.edu/repository/bitstream/handle/10365/3250/1491di00.pdf?sequence=1

Pimental, David. “Environmental and Economic Costs of vertebrate Species Invasions into the United States”. Managing Vertebrate Invasive Species. USDA National Wildlife Research Center Symposia. University of Nebraska-Lincoln. August 2007. Paper 38. http://digitalcommons.unl.edu/nwrcinvasive/38

Guerrilla, Emily. “The Cattle-Cheatgrass Connection”. High Country News. May 2013. https://www.hcn.org/blogs/goat/the-cattle-cheatgrass-connection

Silliman, Brain et al. “Livestock as a Potential Biological Control Agent of an Invasive Wetland Plant. Or. 2014; 2: e567.http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4178463/

Tesauro, Jason. “Restoring Wetland Habitats with Cows and other Livestock”. Conservation Magazine. July 2001. http://conservationmagazine.org/2001/07/restoring-wetland-habitats-with-cows-and-other-livestock/

Immel-Jeffery, D., C. Luke, K. Kraft. Last modified June 2013.California’s Coastal Prairies : Pre-HIstory and History. A project of the Sonoma Marin Coastal Grasslands Working Group.  Center for Environmental Inquiry at Sonoma State University, Rohnert Park, California. www.sonoma.edu/cei.prairie; http://www.sonoma.edu/cei/prairie/history/recent_history.html

Iacurci, Jenna. “Are Cattle the Next ‘Invasive Species?’”. Nature World News. September 2014. http://www.natureworldnews.com/articles/8972/20140910/are-cattle-the-next-invasive-species.htm

"Managing Invasive Plants: Concepts, Principles and Practices: Prescribed Grazing in Practice" U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service National Wildlife Refuge System- Conserving the Nature of America. February http://www.fws.gov/invasives/staffTrainingModule/methods/grazing/practice.html

“Measuring the Daily Destruction of the World’s Rainforests”. Scientific American. November 2009. http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/earth-talks-daily-destruction/

Hoch, Greg. "Where Cattle Roam and Wild Grasses Grow”. Minnesota Conservation Volunteer. July-August 2013. http://www.dnr.state.mn.us/mcvmagazine/issues/2013/jul-aug/cattle.html

Farzan, Shahla. “Cows Not Chemicals: Training Cattle to Eat Invasive Weeds”-The Mindful Californian. California Environmental Legacy Project. October 2012.  http://www.calegacy.org/cows-not-chemicals-training-cattle-to-eat-invasive-weeds/

Note:  This is a rather late submission meant for the last week of January 2016. Due to some seriously restrictive governmentally-inhibited internet service I faced whilst traveling abroad in Iran (still! a most fascinating country of immense beauty!) I had to delay the post until now.  And so, here we shall go:

For over 60 million years, Scolytidae beetles or Bark Beetles have been perhaps the world’s oldest farmers and taxi cab drivers. Of the 3-6,000 different Scolytid species, several have evolved specialized structures in their exoskeletons called Mycangia that collect and support a diverse garden of fungal spores.  Mycangia are pits or micro-hair brushes near the beetles’ mandibles and/or prothorax (an insect’s body segment closest to their heads) that serve as mini cabins for transporting the fungi within and between tree hosts that both beetles and fungi symbiotically work together to feed on.

Figure 2. A photo series of Increasingly magnified images of a bark beetle’s prothotax where the mycangia is located.

  The Bark beetle family features a range of bark diets and tree hosts, with most specializing on the bark of weakened or dying trees among pine, fir, elm tree, oak, birch, as well as fruit orchard trees including olives and pears.  Many beetles and their fungal symbionts are tree species-specific, like the Jeffrey Pine Beetle that attacks only Jeffrey pine. Others, like the Fir Engraver attack several species of trees but they are all within the fir tree family.

Figure 3. Token Bark Beetle, fungi and tree victim, larger than life size

In addition to wood, though, the beetles, no bigger than a grain of rice, dine on their microscopic fungal spore passengers for crucial nutrients, building a complex relationship with deeply interwoven life cycles.  All bark beetles undergo 4 stages of metamorphosis; from an egg, to plump larvae, to pupae, and finally a fully-fledged adult.

Figure 4.  A graphic demonstrating the lifecycle of a Mountain Pine Beetle.

As an adult, a female’s sensitive sense of smell will pick up on an intoxicating aroma, an ‘eau de distress” pheromone that sounds an alarm that a tree is diseased or suffers from drought or a nutrition deficiency. This chemical fragrance wittingly or not allures the prospective female to the stricken tree’s whereabouts.  When she lands on her target, the beetle picks up fungal spores, thousands of which pepper the surface of the tree and are coated in a sticky material that can conveniently latch onto a passerby beetle’s exoskeleton. 

Figure 5. Picture of a spore mass that sticks to the beetle's mycangia and along the tree's cambium.

 The spores then enter the mycangia, which may or may not be lined with glands that secrete a suite of fatty acids, phospholipids, and sterols that nourish the fungi as it develops.  With pampered fungi in tow, the female proceeds to tunnel her way through the cork and bark, munching on the phloem tissues and life support system that transports sugars and metabolites up, down and throughout the tree.  

Figure 6. A cross section of a woody stem.  The Bark beetles infest only the uppermost cambial regions that in this picture includes the vascular cambium and the phloem, except for the periderm. 

Most of the beetle’s lifecycle from larvae up until it metamorphoses into an adult is spent nestled within the phloem.

Figure 7. 

While inside the tree stem, the beetle helps inoculate and spread the spores around like a salt-shaker, planting them into deeper depths of the tree where water-conducting tissues called the xylem busily pump the tree’s lifeblood.  There the fungi breaks down the tough woody tissues into easily digestible compounds, feeding itself and beetle in keen symbiotic fashion.  

One way to tell whether, for example, Ophiostoma and Ceratocystis fungi have been spread about successfully by their own beetle partner, the Mountain Pine Beetles is evidence a glorious greenish-blue stain dying the innermost xylem layers of the tree that the beetles themselves can’t reach on their own.   Once a  blue-stain invasion happens, though, the tree is already dying as the infection hastens it’s death.

Figure 8.  Blue stain fungi radiating throughout the sapwood

Fashion industries like the company Bad Beetle have already been trying to make a killing off of recycling dead stained pine trees to manufacture some interesting wood based products from iPod cases to coffins.

Figure 9. Bad Beetle's iPad cases

While many of these beetle species can chomp their way through the bark by themselves, it’s an energy intensive and draining process and much of the wood’s nutrients remain locked up in cellulose totally inaccessible to the beetle.  Symbiosis with the fungi, however, unleashes benefits for both hairy parties, ensuring larger broods, and plumper descendants.  In return for the beetle offering food, UV protection, and a taxi service to various parts of the tree, the fungi feed the beetle with concentrated nitrogen, pre-digested cellulose, and protection from other harmful fungal pathogens.

A male soon follows a female down the tunnel’s she’s made and mates with her, whereby a pregnant female will lay several dozen eggs along the sides of its tunnels, called a parental gallery.  

Figure 10. Gallery of Pine Engraver Beetle with larvae chomping about.

As the larvae hatch, they will feed both on the fungi the parents ‘farmed’ as well as on the bark itself.  The larvae burrow their own tunnels that radiate away from the parental base, spreading all along like a rapidly building subway system throughout the tree’s circumference.  By effectively cutting off all the phloem, they are girdling the tree and starve it from its own food. The fungi only speeds up the tree’s starvation as it eats away at its water-pumping xylem tissues for a systematic tree-kill.  As the larvae pupate and turn into adults, they’ll bore out of the tree and follow the scent trail to another distressed tree and continue the cycle, often already fungal-coated.

Below is a startling and mesmerizing array of different beetle gallery formations.

Figure 11.  Carving in Elm tree by a Scolytus Beetle with 'Ophiostoma ulmi' Fungi in tow.  The central tunnel that looks like a spine is the parental gallery

Figure 12. Egg gallery of an Ips Bark Beetle just underneath the bark of a conifer. 

A swift and coordinated killing occurs right after the first or pioneer beetle bites into the bark, triggering the cooking up of aggregation pheromones. These chemical signals then call legions of more beetles to descend on the tree for what is called a Mass Attack.

Figure 13.  Massive Attack- The eponymous name of the Bristolian trip-hop band.  By ridiculously ironic design or serendipity, their Mezzanine album cover features a Stag Beetle, which…don’t actually practice mass attacks, but behold! the beatific body.

http://www.vevo.com/watch/massive-attack/angel/GB1209800350

'Angel' music video that may be an anthropomorphized story of a bark beetle/fungal attack and response.

The congregation and mass gathering of beetles may spill over to neighboring trees, resulting in a “GROUP KILL”.  Once a tree’s crowded-out and engorged with beetles, these highly chemically sensitive beetles send out an anti-aggregation pheromone to stop the free-for-all party and move on to fresher targets.

But! The tree is not a passive creature.  Depending on the health of the tree and wealthy access to water (somewhat of a rarity), trees wage an in-your-face defense such as flooding the beetle tunnels with resin to drown the bloody buggers in their sap and flush them outside of their woody body chambers.  

Figure 14.  A smattering of pitch tubes on a pine tree infected with Southern Pine Beetle

Pitch tubes signify the expelled resin from the beetle holes that are often filled with sawdust called “frass” that when oxidized and exposed to air, the yellowish translucence turns a rusty red.  

A successful flooding looks like this:

Figure 15. 

Without copious amounts of resources or enough tree vigor, however, the tree’s doomed.   Other signs of doomedness is crown fading, where the leaves change from green to yellow, brown and then a rusted blood red and ultimately gray, whereby the pine needles fall off the tree. 

Figure 16. A picture of dead and dying lodgepole pine trees and a forest completely infested.

Although these may seem like indiscriminate parasites, they’ve an ecological niche, or role as the first-responders to an already dying tree and are known as Secondary Mortality Agents.  Although these may seem like indiscriminate parasites, they have an ecological niche, or role as the first-responders to an already dying tree and are known as Secondary Mortality Agents.  They are among the first decomposers to recycle the tree’s nutrients back into a forest or ecosystem.  As mentioned before,  the beetles mostly target trees that are  unhealthy and have been weakened by any number of problems, like too high temperatures or limiting resources like water, making them ever more susceptible to an attack.  

Today, a combination of risky forces has triggered an explosive epidemic of hungry beetles and fungi that are decimating thousands of acres of heat-stressed forests around the world, killing billions of trees on a scale ten times larger than ever recorded.   

Figure17. A snapshot of a mass of dead whitebark pine trees by the hand of Mountain pine beetles in Bridger-Teton National Forest, Wyoming

Increasing global temperatures due to increased in greenhouse gases in the atmosphere from human activities has shortened winters and expanded beetles’ reproductive season, resulting in more beetle bern (wee-ones) every year.  Hotter conditions have prolonged droughts and dried up water reserves, drying out forests and, as a result weakening trees’ ability to defend themselves from the ever growing attack.  In the US, the Rocky Mountains have faced more warming than any other region in the country, where tens of tree species including Whitebark Pines, Aspens and Pinon pines have faced catastrophic declines.  

Figure 18.  An illustration of a growing bark beetle attack

Whitebark mortality has hit 90% in recent years, and may be thrown onto the endangered species list.  The introduction of invasive bark beetle species from the global timber trade has also strained our nation’s forests, however the majority of beetle pressures are coming from our very own native varieties, including Mountain Bark, Jeffrey Pine beetle, Fir Engraver Beetle, and Western Pine Beetle.

Figure 19. A Dendroctonus species; so small, roughly 5-8 mm, and yet behemothic in number 

To combat the beetle threat, the US forest Service has waged a deforestation campaign to weed out the diseased and overly crowded forests that, due to a combination of poor forests management over the past 100 years have become extremely susceptible to infestation. Scientists like Diana Six, however, have complained this measure is wiping out trees that may reveal a robust resistance. Other concerns are that we might be ignoring an important perspective of the beetles as mobilizers of an irrevocably changing forest ecosystem.

Check this out.  Diana Six giving one of those mind-blowing TedTalks on her cool research and ways to save forests and build healthier relationships with beetles. 

 Along with better understanding the effects of climate change,  protecting our forests and supporting healthier relations with the beetle and the fungi, it might not be all that bad to give in to the consumerist hook and buy some new blue-stain pine iPhone cases and posh coffins, just for the future.

References: 

Figures 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14 , 15, 16, 17, 18, 19

Arizona Forest Health: Bark Beetle FAQ." Arizona Cooperative Extension. University of Arizona. http://ag.arizona.edu/extension/fh/bb_faq.html  Last Reviewed and Updated: August 2010January 23, 2013.  Retrieved January 26, 2016.

-Bent, Barbara et al. 2010."Climate Change and Bark Beetles of the Western US and Canada: Direct and Indirect Effects”.BioScience. Vol 60. No. 8.602-612.

-Bateman, Maddie. "Bark Beetles are Decimating Our Forests. that Might Actually be a Good Thing”. 2015. Mother Jones.  http://www.motherjones.com/environment/2015/03/bark-pine-beetles-climate-change-diana-six

Harrington, Thomas. "Ecology and Evolution of Mycophagous Bark Beetles and their Fungal Partners". 2005. Ecological and Evolutionary Advances in Insect-Fungal Associations, F. E. Vega and M. Blackwell, eds. Oxford University Press. Pages 257-291

-Klepzig, K.D and D.L Six. 2004. “Bark Beetle-Fungal Symbiosis: Context Dependency in Complex Associations”. Symbiosis. Vol 189-205

-USDA Forest Service Pacific Southwest Region. 2015. "Bark Beetles in California Conifers: Are your trees Susceptible?”Forest Health Protection-California. Pg.1-12.  http://learnmoreaboutclimate.colorado.edu/uploads/model-lessons/mountain-pine-beetles/bark-beetles-brochure.pdf.

-Rocky Mountain Forests at Risk: Confronting Climate-Driven Impacts from Insects, Wildfires, Heat and Drought. Executive Summary. 2014. Union of Concerned Scientists and The Rocky Mountain Climate Organization. http://www.ucsusa.org/sites/default/files/attach/2014/09/Rocky-Mountain-Forests-at-Risk-Executive-Summary.pdf.

-Bark Beetles: Field Guide to Insects and Diseases of Arizona and New Mexico Forests. Retrieved January 2016. http://www.fs.fed.us/r3/resources/health/field-guide/bb/

-University of Nevada, Reno, Cooperative Extension:  Bark Beetles in the Lake Taho Basin. https://www.unce.unr.edu/publications/files/ho/other/fs9840.pdf. Retrieved January 16 ,2015

-Lee. J.C. et al. "Invasive Bark Beetles". Forest Insect and Disease. US Department of Agriculture. US Forest Service. Pg 1-12. http://www.na.fs.fed.us/pubs/fidls/invasive_bark_beetles/inv_bark_beetles.pdf

Among the world’s smallest birds of prey or raptors, Burrowing Owls measure up to 10 inches in body length with a wingspan of about 2 feet and are possibly the most difficult to NOT anthropomorphize and sling some kind of caption to any and all their facial expressions.

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ABFAB

Unlike other owls and for that matter all other raptors that nest and roost in trees, these head-bobbing critters strictly live in tunnels or burrows underground.  However, rather than build their homes themselves, they almost exclusively rely on dens built by Prairie Dogs and Ground Squirrels.  These rodents are called fossorial mammals since they specialize in digging out burrows and mostly live underground.  They are also called Ecosystem Engineers or Keystone Species, which despite their relatively small population sizes significantly affect the survival and existence of many other species, and play a huge role in determining the overall vegetation makeup and soil conditions that define a given ecosystem.   And this captures…my response.

While they don't share the same burrows, more often the owls take over abandoned squirrel burrows and live alongside the ground squirrels or prairie dogs, offering their fossorial allies some protection from other predators...even as the Burrowing Owl eats it’s allies, too.  Why waste too much energy for home and food when you can find it all with a squirrel?! 

Hunting for the next generations.  

 Since they are most alert in the daytime and Diurnal, another contrast from the rest of the owl family that is usually Nocturnal, they hunt primarily at dawn and at dusk for an array of creatures that they can snatch up in their claws.  They may swoop down and pounce on small rodents, frogs and snakes, chase after and ensnarl a frenzied lizard on foot, or catch insects like moths or small birds like sparrows in mid-air with one or two clean chomps.

Given their hunting and flying habits, they PREFER and reside in open low-vegetation valleys and treeless marshlands.  All across western North America and Florida, from Canada through Mexico and the Caribbean to South America, these owls have been iconic residents in dry grasslands, agricultural and arid rangelands, as well as golf courses, cemeteries, airports and even near busy interstate highways.

A weird and yet special (save for the shameless go-pro advertisement) owl dance-off in Mary Lopez’ front lawn.  

 It would appear that these squishy owls fancy land types that, seemingly to their benefit, are quite common in a heavily urbanized world.  Nonetheless, their populations are in decline as urban industrial humans compete rather aggressively for the same prime habitat.  Much of their favored lands and the burrows they find left by squirrels are razed over for intensive agricultural purposes or leveled under buildings.  In human-built environments like airports or grassy knolls near highways, another problem they may face is that the plants introduced there may end up being too tall that it hinders their ability to hunt.  Pesticides used to control grasshoppers or other insects considered pests also pose huge health threats.  But even more dangerous to the owls are the many ground squirrel or prairie dog eradication programs that in effect are wiping out the population of borrowers so critical for owl nesting sites.   For these reasons, burrowing owls are Endangered in Canada and several U.S. states, Threatened in Mexico and considered a “Species of Concern” throughout the Rocky Mountain West and California.

Although these owls are protected under the Migratory Bird Treaty Act that prohibits selling, capturing, or directly killing them, we lack enough protective measures to secure more habitat that is safe from further urban development in the long-term.  

Seeking to re-stabilize and build up healthier population levels, several conservation scientists, state officials and passionate bird advocates are working together to educate the community and developers to create more nesting sites for the birds.  In San Diego County, California, the San Diego Zoo Institute for Conservation Research has been monitoring the efficacy of artificial burrow sites and how well existing and or new pairs of birds adopt them.

A prototype of an artificial burrow. 

An even more exciting effort, though, is the translocation of the sacred California Ground Squirrel to select grassland sites from other areas where they’ve been captured so that they can naturally create new bonafide burrows for the raptors.  Many of these new sites are areas that for decades have been disturbed by cattle, agriculture or other development projects.  

Picture taken in 2011 as researchers  released one of the near 350 squirrels in San Diego County as part of San Diego Zoo’s Conservation program. 

Some of these squirrels are collected from eager-to-cooperate landowners who want nothing more than squirrel-free property, providing a win-win situation.    With the squirrel’s voracious appetite helping manage the surrounding vegetation and it’s knack for digging out tunnels to Burrowing-Owl standards, these bushy tailed wizards may also create conditions that over time restore native plants and animals that have declined after years of former cattle-grazing.  Although the translocation project seems to be making some progress, however, scientists still face some challenges with making the squirrel stay put in their new homes and saving them from being the ‘popcorn-catch’ of hawks and coyotes.

With a greater appreciation for the Burrowing Owl’s dependence on the Ground Squirrel, and implementing easy ways we can live alongside one another in the urban environment, hopefully, these critters can burrow evermore.