Week 7: The great debate

The controversy is between academic research and private industry (commercial products).  Should data from seed companies be made public or is the information strictly the companies property?  Research scientists and the private seed industry have agreements and terms which allow for the sharing and public use of vital information involving human and environmental health.

Who's in control though?  The EPA and FDA have certian standards that must be met in order to become commercially available to the public.  Although these two organizations regulate to some extent what goes on within the biotechnology of the product the seed companies in all reality can determine and alter the tests conducted.  The private seed industry has the majority of say on what can be published and what can't.  They decide and form agreements on the testing with the academic sector and if the public researchers do not comply with the conditions then no information can legally be conducted.

Researchers are going about this all wrong.  I believe that a stronger trust between the two should be formed rather than researches criticizing.  Researchers working with the private seed industry could correlate with each other in that the information formulated from research could benefit the companies in a good way and  at the same time the public could become aware of the technology at hand.  Using the information from the test trials and comparisons could aid in correcting or formulating better and newer products.

Growers should be informed and given disclaimers on the performance data.  This would give the producers a better understanding of what they growing.  Also the growers would be given the information on whether the seed was extensively compared to other top varieties and standards.  Although bio-technology is looked upon as a negative aspect in some cases without this technology (GM crops) food security would not be in the position it is currently in today.  Our global food source is very much dependent on bio-tech crops which involves the advancement of increased productivity for an ever growing world population.

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Entom 767

The max carrying capacity or the plateau from the functional response graph can be reached by several different factors. For example a limited food source which inhibits the ability of the insect to find a valuable source of energy will affect population density.  Also limited space within the insects natural climate can be factor towards survival and reproduction.

The insect density number is the variable that determines the level of the plateau on the graph.  Many different things can take place and disrupt the number of prey attacked by a predator.  Weather and field distribution play a big key in the attack rates.  Number of predators within a population can also correlate with the number of prey attacked.  Higher populations mean more encounters and lower populations might mean fewer interactions. 

During the trial the lady beetle I observed had 7 events (attacks).  I classified an event on the basis of attacking an aphid (start time) and recording the results up to the next attack (end time).  The times from event 1-event 7 are as follows:

1) 41 sec
2) 11 sec
3) 2 min
4) 25 sec
5) 39 sec
6) 4 min 36 sec
7) 1 min 46 sec

Between events 3-4 and 4-5 after the prey was consumed the predator (lady beetle) would groom its mouth parts and continue on.  The grooming seemed odd.  My best guess is that the lady beetle was cleaning its mouth parts for the next victim.  My lady beetle was very aggressive compared to my surrounding classmates.  Within the time of approximately 10 minutes my lady beetle had consumed 7 different aphids which show that possible bio-control with insects (natural enemies) could be beneficial and cost effective.  The standard error for the 7 events was 1.885.

Compared to the table in the handout the handling times are longer and more extensive than in the trials that I conducted.

My responsibility was to trace the search pattern of the lady beetle in search of prey.  The patterns for both predators were random and they spent the majority of their time along the straight edges of the case.  The second lady beetle found the aphid infested leaf about half way through the trial ( @ 3 minutes). 

I was not surprised that the second lady beetle found the leaf but rather surprised that the first lady beetle had a hard time coming up with the find.  Being confined to a small area with only two leafs visible in the center should have been simpler compared to field conditions.  It is possible that the lady beetle was not use to the unfamiliar habitat and was thrown off track.  Either way with high population numbers in a field situation I gained a better understanding with this experiment that bio-control with insects can be potentially useful in a management system.

In the analysis of behavioral sequences we observed 2 events.  Within both trials we calculated the time spent walking, grooming, resting, and feeding. 
Results determined from standard error:

walking (24.74)
resting (7.07)
feeding (31.81)
grooming (no time)