A new study confirms the agricultural skills of at least one group of coleopterans
Save time by listening to our audio articles as you multitaskThe fruit-tree pinhole borer, as its name implies, bores holes in fruit trees. It lays its eggs and raises its young in the galleries thus created. Yet ambrosia beetles, of which this is a particularly pesky example, do not feed directly on the wood they bore into. Instead, they devour fungi which grow on the timber thus exposed.
Researchers have long suspected that this is a form of farming, because they have evidence the insects carry spores of their preferred crop,, into their smallholdings—in effect, sowing it there. Now, Dr Diehl and Dr Biedermann have shown they also engage in another crucial agricultural practice, weeding.grows in them more abundantly than might be expected, given all the fungal competition around—but not why.
The beetles lived up to their name, creating galleries in the substitute wood quite similar to those they excavate in trees. As with natural galleries, they rapidly inoculated the walls of these tunnels withspores. Around ten days later, when the fungi were flourishing, but before the beetles had started laying their eggs, the researchers collected all of the insects. They then returned half to their dwellings while leaving the other labyrinths vacant.
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