"Earth's Internet" attempts to document, reference as much of the natural world networking abilities and strategies as possible. Such Scientific findings are at odds with industrial scientific approaches maintaining our planet. Be warned. If your learning approach it based on Memes with short clever quips, you may be disappointed here.
Think birds are the primary dispersers of seeds? Think again. OSU researchers in Alaska found another animal that might disperse more seeds.
Image by TodaysReality
New research recently released by Oregon State University shows bears in southeast Alaska may be the best contributor for spreading berry seeds. Researchers used motion activated cameras set up in a study area about 30 miles north of Haines.
“We checked the cameras and the status of the berry clusters approximately once per week.”quote from the study
Image taken on December 26, 2017 by Santee Lakes
Cedar Waxwings eating Toyon Berries @ Santee Lakes
Image by Danilo Carradori - (Fairy Wren)
We all know that birds consume tonnes of seeds, nuts & berries, etc and disperse these seeds to other locations by means of their poop. Just check any fence lines in the rurals or even in urban neighbourhoods of any city and you'll find out just what birds are fond of eating. For me as a landscaper it was annoying to see Brazilian Pepper tree seedling emerging from the bottom of chainlink fence borders. They are a nightmare to control if allowed to grow. Others who live in rangelands whose business is cattle may curse Junipers for spreading across their grasslands, but even here again it's the birds who are at fault. Maybe Cattleman should find economic ways to profit from the Juniper's presence, than blaming them for the invasion in their home territory. It's a common misconception to say that birds are the primary resource for naturally spreading seeds. There is an Oregon State University study that says it’s bears can ddo this through their scat (poop). I'd say both critters do this, but the bear factor is interesting. The Scientists concluded that’s largely in part due to the fact that brown and black bears could consume an estimated 300-400 berries in a single bite of a devil’s club cluster. Hopefully one day somebody renames beautiful things found in Nature which incorporate these otherwise vulgar words/terms "devil," "hell," etc. It's clear that there are a number of ways that seeds from plants in nature become dispersed. Another recent report from Cornell University stated that even Snakes act as 'ecosystem engineers' in seed dispersal. Well, that's what they said 😲 See, the idea is that snakes eat rodents like rats, mice, gophers, etc. These little critters eat seed and often store them in their cheek pouches and if a snake comes along and eats them, then the seeds are eventually released by means of snake poop. Whatever 😏 Anyway it's interesting and a little scary too when you consider the way humans have "reverse engineered" (Oops, recently got in trouble from someone for not using another science-based religious metaphor, "evolutionary degeneration") our planet Earth. It's like slowly dismantling an automobile to see how many parts and components you can remove before the vehicle is incapable of functioning anymore. How's that for this world's settled science? 😒
Department of Fisheries and Wildlife, Oregon State University, Corvallis, Oregon
“In search of the nutrition in devil’s club fruit, we estimate that a single bear can consume over 100,000 devil’s club berries per hour of continuous foraging, and brown and black bears can collectively disperse an incredible 200,000 seeds.”quote from the study
Image by http://hookedonflyfishing.net
The Oregon State researcher's data also showed black bears were more likely to eat berries late in the season when Grizzly Bears were trading in the berries for salmon. 😅
There was previously another study and practical application of utilizing bear scat in nursery plantings to reveal what had been eaten. Brilliant idea and one I'm not unfamiliar with as I've done the same with Coyote Scat and others have fed native Toyon berries to their Mina bird to facilitate California Holly germination.
Photo courtesy of Rocky Mountain National Park
Image - Art Norton
The photo above at a Nursery reveals that one pile of bear scat sprouted 1,200 berry bush seedlings in Rocky Mountain National Park. According to the article, almost one third of the seedlings were chokecherry. The rest were Oregon grape. Clearly from the leaves you can see which are which. There was a nice comment in the article which dismissed the notice that any and all findings must be stamped as official "science-based." Here's what the author said, "The scat seedlings, which are twice as tall as any human-grown sprout, are not an official scientific study with volumes of data and hours of research. They’re unofficial and called pocket science. This mini-experiment produced the kind of results that make adding real science motivating." Good for him. This is something that anybody could do on the own and share results with others and hand it on down to other generations. 👍
"...Even predators as small as spiders can have considerable impacts on not only plant diversity, but ecosystem processes as well..." May 7, 2017 This little guy in the upper lefthand corner is a Pisaurina mira nursery web spider. As you know, spiders prey on insects for their food and grasshoppers are part of that diet. Given their choice of various plants for food, grasshoppers will preferentially feed on some plants more than others. These researchers found that grasshoppers prefer to eat grasses, but when these nursery web spiders are present, they will switch to another field and change their diet to other plants like Goldenrods. The Goldenrod often dominate an area where they grow, but in the presence of invading hungry grasshoppers who start munching on these plants, they chew holes and open up their monoculture canopy, which allows other plants an opportunity to thrive there as well. So apparently spiders do play an important role in the biodiversity of many plant ecosystems. An article on this was published by the In Defense of Plants journal below.
"How Spiders Increase Plant Diversity"
Image - InDefenseofPlants.com
"It's the shift in diet itself that has ramifications throughout the entire ecosystem in question. Many goldenrod species are highly competitive when left to their own devices. If left untouched, abandoned fields can quickly become a monoculture of goldenrod. That is where the spiders come in. By causing a behavioral shift in their grasshopper prey, the spiders are having indirect effects on plant diversity in these habitats. Because grasshoppers spend more time feeding on goldenrods in the presence of spiders, they knock back some of the competitive advantages of these plants.
The researchers found that when spiders were present, overall plant diversity increased. This is not because the spiders ate more grasshoppers. Instead, it's because the grasshoppers shifted to a diet of goldenrod, which knocked the goldenrod back just enough to allow other plants to establish. It's not just plant diversity that changed either. Spiders also caused an increase in both solar radiation and nitrogen reaching the soils!
In knocking back the goldenrod, the habitat became slightly more open and patchy as various plant species of different shapes and sizes gradually established. This allowed more light to reach the soil, thus changing the environment for new seeds to germinate. Also, because goldenrod leaves tend to break down more slowly, they can have significant influences on nutrient cycles within the soil. As a more diverse set of plants establish in these field habitats, the type of leaf litter that falls to the ground changes as well. This resulted in an overall increase in the nitrogen supply to the soil, which also influences plant diversity.
In total, the mere presence of spiders was enough to set in motion these top-down ecosystem effects. It's not that spiders eat more grasshoppers, it's that they are changing the behavior of grasshoppers in a way that results in a more diverse plant community overall. This is a radically different narrative than what has been observed with examples such as the reintroduction of wolves to the greater Yellowstone ecosystem yet the conclusions are very much the same. Predators have innumerable ecosystem benefits that we simply can't afford to ignore."
Great News for Biodiversity right ? 😍 Well not so fast! 😬
Three days later after I read that wonderful article from the folks at "In Defense of Plants," who wrote about how these fascinating insect mechanism interactions which set off change reactions of events which leads to healthier biodiversity within plant community ecosystems, "Science Magazine," then comes out three days later with an article I had seen elsewhere about insect numbers disappearing. Now pay close attention, this was not about extinction, but population numbers dropping dramatically. This is something I've seriously wondered about with regards not only insects, but many lifeforms and even touched on this very subject once before in this post here where I noticed insect disappearances in my mother's yard where we do not used ANY harsh chemical pesticdes of any kind, including synthetic fertilizers. One outstanding strange thing that is now obvious is the total absence of the native red harvester ants in her backyard which is a third of an acre. Since I can remember as a kid since 1961, we always had 15 or 20 red harvester ant colonies for which my folks always tried to spray and eradicate with never any success. Prior to leaving the USA and moving here to Sweden in May 2006, there were only two actual colonies that I knew of. It caught my attention then and I went around and counted. Now there are none. There are also none across the street where there has always been a very wide dirt strip. Even up on Rattlesnake mountain at the end of the street I found none, only black harvester ants. But I also notived that the sow or pill bugs were very limited and even earwigs were gone. Again, we never spray with the synthetics:
There are also other loss of living lifeforms I've wondered about over the last few years like mycorrhizal fungi. Many would think the microbiological world is safely tucked away in a hidden darkness and in numbers so incomprehensible that it would make it impossible for the microbiome to be harmed. Really ??? I also wrote another piece about the disappearance of a certain specific mycorrhizal fungi truffles I use to collect in and around Anza California where I use to live. For two decades every Spring & Summer (after the first arrival of monsonnal thunderstorms) I would collect mature truffles for their spores to inoculate plants I grew on my acreage and restoration projects I involved myself with locally. Suddenly in 2001 I could no longer find them. I had also previously begun to notice pine and oak trees dying off in the same location before the fungi truffle disappearance. Now large numbers of those pines are gone except for a few and the oaks that still remain are sickly or dead, even Scrub Oaks. So I wrote about that experience as well:
The two articles below is a bit more spooky. This has happened over time, but so slowly that most people "take no note." Wow, where have we heard that before ? This scenario reminds me of the story about the frog put in a pan of water where a low fire is slowly heating up the water. By the time the frog realizes what has happened it's too late. His goose is cooked. That's about where we are now and that is what the researchers are finding in the article below. It's not so much lack of biodiversity or extinction, but a huge loss of bioabundance.
In the days gone by decades ago, normal windshileds (or windscreens) would have often appeared as the photo above. It require frequent stops (when bad enough) to use the window cleaning services at the closest petrol stop.
Photo By Paul Henderson (2013)
Yoday that has all changed. This photo above is becoming more common. The update above from Canada and Britain is interesting, but they are tending to blame more cars on the roads. Folks, there is more going on than more cars on the roads as the post below informs us. But it's an interesting read anyway.
Fireflies, like these shown above in a forest in the Netherlands, have disappeared from some areas in North America and Europe where they were once abundant. The photograph to the right shows Hover flies, which are often mistaken for bees or wasps, are important pollinators. Their numbers have also plummeted in the nature reserves of Germany. Now take very special note here, I said Nature Reserves, not urban landscapes or rural agricultural areas where you would expect such a scenario to be the cause. Sounds like designating something a National Monument is a wasted endeavour which only serves to sugar coat and smokescreen to the public that all is well in the world when all is not well. With all the angry eco-protest marches happening everywhere, we are forced to swallow a sort of religous blind faith-based chant which goes like, "There is peace, there is peace, when they is no peace." The article below starts off by telling a story of the good'ol days when you drove your car and masses of bugs covered the bumper, grill and especially windscreen (shield) of your automobile. For me the worst place for buggageddon was always driving down into the Imperial Valley's industrial agricultural landscape. The insaneness of having to periodically stop at a gas station and cleaning my windscreen a couple of times before I even arrived at my ultimate destination of El Centro was annoying. But now many have noticed the lack of bugs on the windscreen and so have I the last couple of times we have gone through there. So what gives ? What's changed ? That's the whole point of this article.
Where Have All the Insects Gone ?
Of the scant records that do exist, many come from amateur naturalists, whether butterfly collectors or bird watchers. Now, a new set of long-term data is coming to light, this time from a dedicated group of mostly amateur entomologists who have tracked insect abundance at more than 100 nature reserves in western Europe since the 1980s.
Over that time the group, the Krefeld Entomological Society, has seen the yearly insect catches fluctuate, as expected. But in 2013 they spotted something alarming. When they returned to one of their earliest trapping sites from 1989, the total mass of their catch had fallen by nearly 80%. Perhaps it was a particularly bad year, they thought, so they set up the traps again in 2014. The numbers were just as low. Through more direct comparisons, the group—which had preserved thousands of samples over 3 decades—found dramatic declines across more than a dozen other sites.
Many losses reverberate up the food chain. "If you're an insect-eating bird living in that area, four-fifths of your food is gone in the last quarter-century, which is staggering," says Dave Goulson, an ecologist at the University of Sussex in the United Kingdom, who is working with the Krefeld group to analyze and publish some of the data. "One almost hopes that it's not representative—that it's some strange artifact."
No one knows how broadly representative the data are of trends elsewhere. But the specificity of the observations offers a unique window into the state of some of the planet's less appreciated species. Germany's "Red List" of endangered insects doesn't look alarming at first glance, says Sorg, who curates the Krefeld society's extensive collection of insect specimens. Few species are listed as extinct because they are still found in one or two sites. But that obscures the fact that many have disappeared from large areas where they were once common. Across Germany, only three bumble bee species have vanished, but the Krefeld region has lost more than half the two dozen bumble bee species that society members documented early in the 20th century.
Members of the Krefeld society have been observing, recording, and collecting insects from the region—and around the world—since 1905. Some of the roughly 50 members—including teachers, telecommunication technicians, and a book publisher—have become world experts on their favorite insects. Siegfried Cymorek, for instance, who was active in the society from the 1950s through the 1980s, never completed high school. He was drafted into the army as a teenager, and after the war he worked in the wood-protection division at a local chemical plant. But because of his extensive knowledge of wood-boring beetles, the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich awarded him an honorary doctorate in 1979. Over the years, members have written more than 2000 publications on insect taxonomy, ecology, and behavior.
The society's headquarters is a former school in the center of Krefeld, an industrial town on the banks of the Rhine that was once famous for producing silk. Disused classrooms store more than a million insect specimens individually pinned and named in display cases. Most were collected nearby, but some come from more exotic locales. Among them are those from the collection of a local priest, an active member in the 1940s and 1950s, who persuaded colleagues at mission stations around the world to send him specimens. (The society's collection and archive are under historical preservation protection.)
Weighty disappearances
The mass of insects collected by monitoring traps in the Orbroicher Bruch nature reserve in northwest Germany dropped by 78% in 24 years.
Tens of millions more insects float in carefully labeled bottles of alcohol—the yield from the society's monitoring projects in nature reserves around the region. The reserves, set aside for their local ecological value, are not pristine wilderness but "seminatural" habitats, such as former hay meadows, full of wildflowers, birds, small mammals—and insects. Some even include parts of agricultural fields, which farmers are free to farm with conventional methods. Heinz Schwan, a retired chemist and longtime society member who has weighed thousands of trap samples, says the society began collecting long-term records of insect abundance partly by chance. In the late 1970s and early 1980s, local authorities asked the group for help evaluating how different strategies for managing the reserves affected insect populations and diversity.
The members monitored each site only once every few years, but they set up identical insect traps in the same place each time to ensure clean comparisons. Because commercially available traps vary in ways that affect the catch, the group makes their own. Named for the Swedish entomologist René Malaise, who developed the basic design in the 1930s, each trap resembles a floating tent. Black mesh fabric forms the base, topped by a tent of white fabric and, at the summit, a collection container—a plastic jar with an opening into another jar of alcohol. Insects trapped in the fabric fly up to the jar, where the vapors gradually inebriate them and they fall into the alcohol. The traps collect mainly species that fly a meter or so above the ground. For people who worry that the traps themselves might deplete insect populations, Sorg notes that each trap catches just a few grams per day—equivalent to the daily diet of a shrew.
Sorg says society members saved all the samples because even in the 1980s they recognized that each represented a snapshot of potentially intriguing insect populations. "We found it fascinating—despite the fact that in 1982 the term ‘biodiversity' barely existed," he says. Many samples have not yet been sorted and cataloged—a painstaking labor of love done with tweezers and a microscope. Nor have the group's full findings been published. But some of the data are emerging piecemeal in talks by society members and at a hearing at the German Bundestag, the national parliament, and they are unsettling.
Beyond the striking drop in overall insect biomass, the data point to losses in overlooked groups for which almost no one has kept records. In the Krefeld data, hover flies—important pollinators often mistaken for bees—show a particularly steep decline. In 1989, the group's traps in one reserve collected 17,291 hover flies from 143 species. In 2014, at the same locations, they found only 2737 individuals from 104 species.
Since their initial findings in 2013, the group has installed more traps each year. Working with researchers at several universities, society members are looking for correlations with weather, changes in vegetation, and other factors. No simple cause has yet emerged. Even in reserves where plant diversity and abundance have improved, Sorg says, "the insect numbers still plunged."
A Weather Station for Biodiversity
Researchers in Germany hope to develop a set of automated sensors that will monitor the abundance and diversity of plants, animals, and fungi with the help of pattern recognition and DNA and chemical analysis.
V.ALTOUNIAN/SCIENCE
Changes in land use surrounding the reserves are probably playing a role. "We've lost huge amounts of habitat, which has certainly contributed to all these declines," Goulson says. "If we turn all the seminatural habitats to wheat and cornfields, then there will be virtually no life in those fields." As fields expand and hedgerows disappear, the isolated islands of habitat left can support fewer species. Increased fertilizer on remaining grazing lands favors grasses over the diverse wildflowers that many insects prefer. And when development replaces countryside, streets and buildings generate light pollution that leads nocturnal insects astray and interrupts their mating.
Neonicotinoid pesticides, already implicated in the widespread crash of bee populations, are another prime suspect. Introduced in the 1980s, they are now the world's most popular insecticides, initially viewed as relatively benign because they are often applied directly to seeds rather than sprayed. But because they are water soluble, they don't stay put in the fields where they are used. Goulson and his colleagues reported in 2015 that nectar and pollen from wildflowers next to treated fields can have higher concentrations of neonicotinoids than the crop plants. Although initial safety studies showed that allowable levels of the compounds didn't kill honey bees directly, they do affect the insects' abilities to navigate and communicate, according to later research. Researchers found similar effects in wild solitary bees and bumble bees.
Less is known about how those chemicals affect other insects, but new studies of parasitoid wasps suggest those effects could be significant. Those solitary wasps play multiple roles in ecosystems—as pollinators, predators of other insects, and prey for larger animals. A team from the University of Regensburg in Germany reported in Scientific Reports in February that exposing the wasp Nasonia vitripennis to just 1 nanogram of one common neonicotinoid cut mating rates by more than half and decreased females' ability to find hosts. "It's as if the [exposed] insect is dead" from a population point of view because it can't produce offspring, says Lars Krogmann, an entomologist at the Stuttgart Natural History Museum in Germany.
No one can prove that the pesticides are to blame for the decline, however. "There is no data on insecticide levels, especially in nature reserves," Sorg says. The group has tried to find out what kinds of pesticides are used in fields near the reserves, but that has proved difficult, he says. "We simply don't know what the drivers are" in the Krefeld data, Goulson says. "It's not an experiment. It's an observation of this massive decline. The data themselves are strong. Understanding it and knowing what to do about it is difficult."
The factors causing trouble for the hover flies, moths, and bumble bees in Germany are probably at work elsewhere, if clean windshields are any indication. Since 1968, scientists at Rothamsted Research, an agricultural research center in Harpenden, U.K., have operated a system of suction traps—12-meter-long suction tubes pointing skyward. Set up in fields to monitor agricultural pests, the traps capture all manner of insects that happen to fly over them; they are "effectively upside-down Hoovers running 24/7, continually sampling the air for migrating insects," says James Bell, who heads the Rothamsted Insect Survey.
Between 1970 and 2002, the biomass caught in the traps in southern England did not decline significantly. Catches in southern Scotland, however, declined by more than two-thirds during the same period. Bell notes that overall numbers in Scotland were much higher at the start of the study. "It might be that much of the [insect] abundance in southern England had already been lost" by 1970, he says, after the dramatic postwar changes in agriculture and land use.
The stable catches in southern England are in part due to constant levels of pests such as aphids, which can thrive when their insect predators are removed. Such species can take advantage of a variety of environments, move large distances, and reproduce multiple times per year. Some can even benefit from pesticides because they reproduce quickly enough to develop resistance, whereas their predators decline. "So lots of insects will do great, but the insects that we love may not," Black says.
Other, more visible creatures may be feeling the effects of the insect losses. Across North America and Europe, species of birds that eat flying insects, such as larks, swallows, and swifts, are in steep decline. Habitat loss certainly plays a role, Nocera says, "but the obvious factor that ties them all together is their diet."
Some intriguing, although indirect, clues come from a rare ecological treasure: decades' worth of stratified bird droppings. Nocera and his colleagues have been probing disused chimneys across Canada in which chimney swifts have built their nests for generations. From the droppings, he and his colleagues can reconstruct the diets of the birds, which eat almost exclusively insects caught on the wing.
The layers revealed a striking change in the birds' diets in the 1940s, around the time DDT was introduced. The proportion of beetle remains dropped off, suggesting the birds were eating smaller insects—and getting fewer calories per catch. The proportion of beetle parts increased slightly again after DDT was banned in the 1970s but never reached its earlier levels. The lack of direct data on insect populations is frustrating, Nocera says. "It's all correlative. We know that insect populations could have changed to create the population decline we have now. But we don't have the data, and we never will, because we can't go back in time."
Sorg and Wägele agree. "We deeply regret that we did not set up more traps 20 or 30 years ago," Sorg says. He and other Krefeld society members are now working with Wägele's group to develop what they wish they had had earlier: a system of automated monitoring stations they hope will combine audio recordings, camera traps, pollen and spore filters, and automated insect traps into a "biodiversity weather station". Instead of tedious manual analysis, they hope to use automated sequencing and genetic barcoding to analyze the insect samples. Such data could help pinpoint what is causing the decline—and where efforts to reverse it might work best.
Paying attention to what E. O. Wilson calls "the little things that run the world" is worthwhile, Sorg says. "We won't exterminate all insects. That's nonsense. Vertebrates would die out first. But we can cause massive damage to biodiversity—damage that harms us."
Update May 20, 2017: Sithsoniaan Tropical Research Institute
Credit: Chung Yun Tak
Credit: Saskya Van Nouhuys
I'm interjecting this tropical research report here because it is relevant to the importance of insecting leading the way ecosystems are sustained in balance. Using plasticine caterpillar models like this one in the photo above and at right at the Smithsonian's ForestGEO site of Tai Po Kau in Hong Kong, researchers discovered a global pattern of higher predation at low elevations and low latitudes. Clearly what we consider pest insects are those insects thaat eat plants we like in our landscapes, gardens and farms. But we should also acknowledge that there are beneficial natural components which eat such pests. First thing that comes to most people's minds are such predators as birds & anmals, but that is not what these researchers found. Insect predators are the most important abundant predators of pest insects in the wild as this study below found. So when loss of Bioabundance of predatory insects takes place, our goose is cooked and the only real winners in the perverted sense as all the Agro-Chemical & Biotech Industries. As sick & horrific as that sounds, it's nevertheless the truth.
Predators are Real Lowlifes
Insects drove the trend, not mammals or birds. “As someone who has studied insect biodiversity in the tropics for most of my life, I wasn’t surprised that insects were responsible for most of the predation observed,” said Yves Basset, leader of the ForestGEO Arthropod Initiative at STRI.
The team put out almost 3,000 model caterpillars for four to 18 days at 31 different sites from Australia to Greenland at different altitudes, from zero to 2,100 meters above sea level. Based on characteristic marks left by predators in the clay, they could tell whether the models were attacked by birds, mammals or insects.
This should be a wake up call, but most likely it will generally fall on deaf ears. Mere handfulls of interested ones will click "Like" on some Enviro-Facebook page, but mostly it will go unnoticed. The average human being hates bugs and buys into the industrial science marketing of "An only good Bug is a dead Bug." Think back on those RAID commercials. Synthetic Pesticides are incapable of differienting between and good and bad insect. Most don't care. They want bugs gone. Seriously, walk down any Home Depot, Lowes, Hornbach, Bau Haus or other local hardware store and the only viable healthy garden solution they offer is a science-based synthetic toxic option. No instruction or education of ever building a biodiverse system in your garden thru biomimicry. There was a reference to E.O. Wilson at the end of the article. These days everyone seems to want to worship the ground that E.O. Wilson walks on as something hallowed. The 80+ E.O. Wilson, is a Harvard professor of evolutionary biology who made his celebrity claim to fame back in the 1970s with his study of social species in two books, The Insect Societies and Sociobiology. He is internationally acknowledged as "the father of sociobiology" and is the world's leading authority on ants. Hence I can understand why Gretchen Vogel who wrote the article referenced him in the last paragraph where she quotes him as saying "we must pay attention to the little things that run the world." Sure enough in his book, Diversity of Life, E.O. Wilson stated:
“Most life on land depends ultimately on one relationship: the mycorrhiza, the intimate and mutually dependent coexistence of fungi and the roots systems of plants.”
His point of course was that the importance of these beneficial fungi should not be underestimated. So okay, he has some good points on why our understanding of Nature's micro-world should be better. I totally agree. But then at other times he does an about face and turns right around and out of the other corner of his mouth tells the world that Industrial Agriculture's Biotech World is the only thing that can save Nature. In 2011 in an interview in "EarthSky Journal," E.O. Wilson said:
"And within science, this is going to be a century of biology. We are entering an age of synthesis. So many discoveries have been made in biology in the cell, at the molecular level, and on up to the development of organisms."
"And we need all the biology and all the advances we can find in agriculture, especially. We’re going to have to switch worldwide to dry land agriculture. We don’t have enough water in enough countries to feed all those people and to restore soil to arable condition. So this means that we have to have genetically modified organisms. I’d take that as a given. Some people don’t like the idea. But that’s one of those necessities brought about by the human condition."
Clearly the very thing Wilson here is advocating is the very thing that is killing biodiversity and bioabundance. E.O. Wilson like Bill Nye will never admit that because supporting biotech world is paramont in keeping hold of their science celebrity darling icon status. Bill Nye was once opposed to GMOs, but then one day Monsanto showed him the light. More than likely he was ushered into a back room and explained the facts of life by the good'ol boys club about what he should do to keep that status quo as a celebrity icon if he knew what was healthy for him. Both Wilson and Nye are also staunch advocates of the"Agrument from Poor Design" religious dogma. I use the term religious here because there is nothing scientific about it. It's done more harm to the natural world and held back real world sustainable eco-green technological innovation more than anything else. Both men are also part of the new secular attitude espoused earlier by Edward Abbey who believed mankind is worthless and desperately needs culling if not outright removal. Although both men do not see either of themselves as part of that problem. Nobody questions these science celebrity icons and they should. Unfortunately, E.O. Wilson's and Bill Nye’s intolerant worldview seems to be rubbing off and infecting many of today's Gen-X and Millennials (think of turmoil & uncertainty) which might explain some of the insane chaos which is a common component of today's world.
Well, getting back to insects and the two artcles. A couple years ago Germany (one of the biggest users of palm oil) expressed self-righteous indignation towards Indonesia for cutting down their country's rainforests and replacing them with palm oil plantations. The Indonesian leader also fired back exposing Germany for destroying 70% of Germany's original forests. Sure enough that is true. What forests that do exist have become industrial forestry plantations, with only those few scattered nature reserves which we spoke of earlier. This is also true of most of industrial Europe including Sweden. This may well account for the drop in not only insects, but also other wildlife. So blame cannot be put squarely on the shoulders of industrial science, but also these science celebrity icons whom they go to bed with figuratively speaking to promote their technology. For all the public shouting and fingerpointing these celebrities do at the average human being for not being eco-green, they themseves are the blind leading the blind. These icons need to be exposed for what they really are. As for the average person, follow the lead recommended by the first article from the "In Defense of Plants" people. Learn how nature works and biomimic that in your own landscape or garden. As far as the bigger picture, this world's leadership (irrespecitive of the ideological worldview) needs to be completely eradicated soon. If that doesn't happen, then nothing will be saved.
Update 2018 --->>> Anyone else noticing this too ??? 😲
This is not a general message, "Calling all Predators." But rather more specific chemical signals being sent out to specialized predators depending on who or what herbivore is munching on the plant
image - MadisonTrees.com
We all understand what the 911 Emergency Protocol is. When we call 911, we are usually specific about which particular emergency we are experiencing. We may need the Police, Fire Department or an Ambulence and with the right communication the correct help is on the way. Recently, the German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv) Halle-Jena-Leipzig did a study about what happens when plants are attacked by herbivores (insect, animals, etc). Apparently most plants call in emergency reinforcements. They proceed by emitting specific chemical aerosol signals. These aerosol signals attract the right specific predatory wasp that parasitizes a specific host insect pest which is attacking the plant. The wasps lay their eggs into the caterpillars, thereby killing them. This means fewer butterflies and hungry caterpillars in the next generation. An international research team tested the effects of twelve types of herbivores on a field mustard (Brassica rapa). The researchers found that the plants consistently adapt the odours they emit upon attack to the characteristics of the respective herbivore. This helped the plant to specifically attract a certain specific natural enemy that feed on the herbivores eating them. Among the twelve different herbivores that they tested, there were caterpillars, aphids and a slug. The herbivore selection included specialist and generalist, sucking and chewing, as well as exotic and native species.
Plants smell different when they are eaten by exotic herbivores
Photo - Nicole Van Dam
Professor Nicole Van Dam sees the results as "spectacular proof" of how specifically plants respond to their environment.
"The plants may not have a nervous system, eyes, ears, or mouths, but they are capable of determining who is attacking them. Based on this, they can transmit reliable information to specialized parasitic wasps that can learn the odours to find their preferred host. What I find truly amazing is that they're even capable of distinguishing between a native and an exotic herbivore."
Trees recognize roe deer by their saliva: Smart defence mechanisms against browsing
Image: Town Mouse & Country Mouse Blog Mule Deer browsing foliage of native California Coffeeberry
Photo - Bettina Ohse
Animals also can be foliage damaging herbivores to plants. The photo above is of a California Mule Deer browsing the foliage of a native chaparral plant called California Coffeeberry. While we are told fables of Native Americans setting fires to improve grasslands for grazers like deer, what they really like is browsing shrub and tree foliage. As I've previously asked on this subject is, what is it that gardeners most generally complain about when it comes to Deer ??? Is it that they graze their lawns or rather damage flower beds, shrubs and trees ??? Another question would be, Are plants also programmed with a similar chemical signalling defense mechanisms to thwart animal browsing and if so, how does this defense work ??? This was another study done along the same lines as the insect herbivory study above. Notice the photo at right here where a central leader of a Maple was cut with metal shears, but a deer's saliva was applied to the damaged area which sent a signal message to produce more chemical components like tannins which make the foliage taste bitter to the deer. Also triggered were growth hormones to encourage the plant to make up for the lost growth. The plant also can apparently tell the difference between deer browsing and wind storm damage of a branch. Very kool stuff. Here are a couple of paragraphs:
In order to protect themselves against roe deer browsing, trees purposely put up a fight. By studying young beeches (Fagus sylvatica) and maples (Acer pseudoplatanus), biologists from the Leipzig University and the German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv) have now found out that trees are able to recognise precisely whether a branch or bud has been purposefully nibbled off by a roe deer – or just randomly torn off by a storm or other mechanical disturbance. The saliva of the animals gives them the signal. If a deer feeds on a tree and leaves its saliva behind, the tree will increase its production of salicylic acid. This hormone, in turn, signals to the plant to increase the production of specific tannins. It is known for some of these substances that they influence the feeding behaviour of roe deer, with the result that the deer lose their appetite for the shoots and buds. In addition, the saplings increase their concentrations of other plant hormones, growth hormones in particular. These hormones enhance the growth of the remaining buds to compensate for the lost ones.
“On the other hand, if a leaf or a bud snaps off without a roe deer being involved, the tree stimulates neither its production of the salicylic acid signal hormone nor the tannic substances. Instead, it predominantly produces wound hormones,” explains Bettina Ohse, lead author of the study. The scientists reached their conclusions by outsmarting the saplings: They simulated a roe deer feeding on them by cutting off buds or leaves and trickling real roe deer saliva on the cut surface from a pipette. Shortly after, they recorded the concentrations of the hormones and tannins in the saplings.
Previously, other studies have shown that plants detect predation from pests like the same cabbage caterpillar through vibrational waves from their chewing. Perhaps plants detect things in a combination of sensory ways. Clearly chemical defenses are depensed in a variety of messaging, either by being sending chemical text messages through their the root systems and continuing into the fungal network grid to warn other plants through their root systems to manufacture more bitter tannins. Or as this study revealed by means of released message specific aerosols to signal just the right predator to deal with a specific pest. We now know that plants are capable of communicating with each other via extensive and complex networks, and can warn each other of the presence of pests. In response, these plants are able to mount natural defenses against various types of infestations. This interconnectedness between soil, microbes, plants, pests, is a fascinating area of study. Unfortunately Industrial Science has lost much of what used to be common-sense farming and gardening knowledge which was based on simple observation. This was the very thing science was supposed to be about. The industrial Scientists are now forced to look back at what they once made fun of as far as age-old wisdom which reveals that nature is apparently far smarter than they were in the past willing to give it credit for. This is where biomimetics can become an important part of gardening, urban landscaping and sustainable agriculture. Science doesn't need to combat pests by inventing more and more synthetic chemical warfare. That's not the type of chemical biomimicry needed. As mentioned before, science has been influenced by irresponsible philosophical dogma brought to us by such things as Arguments from Poor Design which has done more to hold science back from understanding how our natural world actually works more than anything else. Instead of spitting on Fundies with time wasting lame arguments, they should have been busy creating sustainable ways for optimal growing conditions so that plants could have responded with their own built in programmed defenses. Instead, we've been given this ill conceived "Green Revolution" which was anything but green and there are still large corporate entities who want to keep this status quo. It's really unfortunate that this type of scientific discovery referenced in the above links are still not the science that rules our world. Many are catching on now, but are they too late to make a difference ???
"In this interview with Joel Salatin, Joel talks about how the regeneration of his family farm utilized the patterns discovered from observing natural grazing and migration of wild animals in native plant communities. This discussion unlocks the secrets of Nature to create a system of pasture based agriculture that actually builds soil, diversity and interdependent relationships between farming and God. In respecting the natural process of Nature, Joel and his family have built a thriving farm business, while restoring ecological integrity to the land. This method of farm management creates community amongst its workers and consumers and provides a spiritual connection to the land and its inhabitants."
By Karen Rybold-Chin
Here are a couple other video links from the Mother Earth News fair, West Bend, Wisconsin and videos featuring Joel Salatin who continues on about biomimicry of Nature as opposed to working against Nature.
More examples of biomimicry of nature regarding agriculture. Industrial agriculture's worldview is about feeding crop plants with unnatural synthetic fertilizers. Natures way of feeding the plant is rather feeding the microbiome which in turn feeds the plant. There is no money in this for the Industrial Agricultural business model, hence their vicious resistence. Will Harris, owner of White Oak Pastures down in Georgia, tells us about his movement away from industrial agriculture to regenerative farmer.
Nice video interviews and stories on Biomimicry with Will Harris, owner of White Oak Pastures and Joel Salatin of Polyface Farms in Swoop, Virginia which was released yesterday and this comes off the heals of a newly released research paper published entitled:
Overview: "Biomimicry, defined as innovation through the emulation of biological forms, processes, patterns, and systems, is particularly valuable for its focus on solution discovery, as opposed to solution validation. GOJO Industries, Inc., used biomimicry to drive environmentally sustainable product innovation. The approach proved both efficient and effective: in comparison to a historical new product development project with a similar objective and scope, the biomimicry-driven project produced double the intellectual property and, based on a preliminary assessment of lead product concepts, at least double the energy savings for just one-sixth the resource commitment. Biomimicry also showed potential to increase the overall speed of front-end innovation. This case study suggests that biomimicry may be a highly promising approach for driving innovation, and particularly environmentally sustainable innovation, but further investigation is needed to validate the conclusions of this single case study. The authors will discuss their study in more detail at an IRI-sponsored webinar, October 7, 2016, 12–1 pm EST. For more information, visit;
Other Designs in Nature for Inspirations in Technological Innovation
Photo by Gregory Smith via a Creative Commons license
The California Condor is North America’s largest bird. Their broad wings and massive bodies give them a powerful presence in the air.
Take the design feature of the Californnia Condor. Giant wingspan and at the tips of wings something we call winglets. So what are they for ??? When human genius designed the first airplanes they imagined kool looking designs which appeared more streamlined and assumed to have less interference and resistance in flight. Much of this inovation came during a time of World War II. But in the era of big airline jets, price wars and cuttings costs, something had to be done about airline efficiency. But what ??? How appropriate we look at the wing and wingtip winglet of the German Lufthansa airline who actually uses the Condor as their company's logo. Human physics and the reality of physics found in nature are often two different thing. Only after painful experiences will humans acknowledge mistakes and look for change. In a nutshell this winglet design pattern after a reality found in nature with regards large soaring birds like Condors and Eagles, it was found that such a designed created more stability and airplanes encounter far less turbulance. But another wonderfull thing is that as a result of such efficiency in design, the airline industry as a whole saved billions of dollars in fuel costs every year. This is one of those, "Did it Evolve or Was it Designed ???" moments 😄
Nature-Inspired Biomimicry from the Sea!
image - Treehugger
Mercedes-Benz looked towards the boxfish for their bionic car concept. Noting the aerodynamics and efficiency of the boxfish's shape, the engineers decided to apply the characteristics of the fish to a car. The result is a very streamlined vehicle with a 65% lower drag coefficient than other compact cars out at the time (2005).
"The same applies to the intricate structural designs of cacti, which are exposed to a great deal of heat pressure in the desert. Their heat-reflecting capacity is low, since their surface is greatly reduced so as to cut down on evaporation. Nature has solved the problem by equipping many cacti with cooling ribs. These shade the cactus's surface against the scorching sun and simultaneously improve heat radiation. The alternating planes of light and shade of the vertical cooling ribs of the torch thistle produce rising and falling air currents, which improve heat radiation. And when the sun reaches its highest position, it hits the torch thistle from above, where it presents its smallest surface. A botanist discovered that torch thistles perish of burns when they are placed horizontally in the sun."
Kingfisher - Bullet Trains & Tunnel Speed
Image - 500 Series Shinkansen / Sam Doshi
Species 2000 & ITIS Catalogue of Life: 2008 Annual Checklist
Excerpt: "[W]e had another challenge that we pursued to the test run phase. Half of the entire Sanyo Shinkansen Line (from Osaka to Hakata) is made up of tunnel sections. When a train rushes into a narrow tunnel at high speed, this generates atmospheric pressure waves that gradually grow into waves like tidal waves. These reach the tunnel exit at the speed of sound, generating low-frequency waves that produce a large boom and aerodynamic vibration so intense that residents 400 meters away have registered complaints. For this reason, we gave up doing test runs at over 350 km/h.
"Then, one of our young engineers told me that when the train rushes into a tunnel, he felt as if the train had shrunk. This must be due to a sudden change in air resistance, I thought. The question the occurred to me - is there some living thing that manages sudden changes in air resistance as a part of daily life?"
"Yes, there is, the kingfisher. To catch its prey, a kingfisher dives from the air, which has low resistance, into high-resistance water, and moreover does this without splashing. I wondered if this is possible because of the keen edge and streamlined shape of its beak. The beak of kingfishers allows splashless entry into water due to the wedge shape it makes with the head that is round in cross section.
"So we conducted tests to measure pressure waves arising from shooting bullets of various shapes into a pipe and a thorough series of simulation tests of running the trains in tunnels, using a space research super-computer system. Data analysis showed that the ideal shape for this Shinkansen is almost identical to a kingfisher's beak.
"I was once again experiencing what it is to learn from Nature, seeing first hand that a solution obtained through large-scale tests and analysis by a state-of-the-art super-computer turned out to be very similar to a shape developed by a living creature in the natural world. The nose of our new 500-Series Shinkansens has a streamline shape that is 15m in length and almost round in cross section.
Take about 15 minutes here and watch Janine Benyus talk about biomimicry of designs found out in Nature. It's a 17 minute TED Talk where Janine Benyus provides a message for inventors. When solving a design problem, look to nature first. There you'll find inspired designs for making things waterproof, aerodynamic, solar-powered and more. Here she reveals dozens of new products that take their cue from nature with spectacular results.
This video above is great as far as an explanation of why we should copy designs found out in Nature first. For exampe, one presenter named Janine Benyus who I commend for her work and efforts, makes an excellent point. She reference the idea that medicines from the Rain Forests and she clarifies this by saying it's not so much identifying some molecule for a cure, but rather an 'idea' for the cure. But the problem here is, ideas as we know them only come from an intelligent Mind, not blind unguided forces without purpose or goals. With that in mind there's a caveat or warning or proviso of specific stipulations, conditions, or limitations that come with such a statement. What Janine Benyus is saying is in direct conflict with the Theory of Evolution proponents who have for decades pushed the "Argument from Poor Design" strategy to pimp a worldview. The problem is that it's Nature who's been given the shaft, not the rightwinger fundies they are attempting they are targeting in debates. I appreciate many ToE followers here won't like this, but this biased religious outlook goes back all the way to Darwin and his writings which are loaded with metaphysical religious assumptions and asserted that, "If their were a God he never would have created things in such and such a way." Take note, I find this viewpoint question to be a legitimate one to ask, but it has nothing to do with Science. Science cannot answer what an intelligent entity it's believers say doesn't exist in the first place would or wouldn't do in any given situation. I mean seriously, what repeatable experiment have they offered thus far ? None! This doesn't mean that we can't practice biomimicry, because we can. But irrespective of how anybody on this planet thinks or believes how life's origins came about, the harmonious way life in all ecosystems operates is in no way flawed or badly designed as this world's elites have shoved down people's throats and coerced them to believe. What has resulted is the degraded natureal world we all live in now. Climate Change ? It's easy to blame humans as many scientists do, but maybe they should start pointing fingers first at their fellow bought and paid for corporate scientist brothers who have developed irresponsible technology which has brought natural systems to it's knees.
Scientific American
Ponder for a moment how much eco-friendly sustainable technological innovation has been held back because a Scientific Orthodoxy [every bit the mirror image of Christendom's Ecclesiastical Hierachical Structure when they ran Academia] with power and authority has controlled for 100+ years how mankind should view our natural world ? Take these present Biotechnology and Agro-Chemical Companies. Their worldview of Nature is that it's flawed, inept, inefficient and badly designed and the only way the world will be saved is through the superior genius of their guiding hand. Did you know, most of their geneticists generally have no clue as to how whole plant systems work in cooperation with other plants within any ecosystem outside the Lab ? Their belief about the informational content of DNA is that it's not information as we know it at all, but rather nothing more than copying errors, random meaningless patterns, most of which they insist is nothing more than Junk. But the latest scientific research is now proving otherwise. Take the findings of ENCODE. And there have always been other science disciplines which have revealed the truth, but they haven't always had the powerful backing and financial resources to move forward against the tidal wave of Industrial Science.
Responsible Scientific researchers have shown that Mycorrhizal Fungi and Beneficial Bacteria and a host of other critters living in the soil have been perfectly maintaining the natural world's soils for possibly countless milleniums of time. We really don't know for how long, other than the usual blind faith speculations of deep time thrown in for eye candy in a research paper. Those in power and authority and with a financial stake in keeping the status quo are bent on keeping things as they are. But their actions are in direct conflict with Science disciplines like mycology, ecology, entomology, soil science, etc, etc, etc. This creates conflict of loyalties for many environmental activists who are immersed in this culture of science, but fear to criticize industrial science because of being labeled an Anti-Science Luddite. At least biomimicry or biomimetics separates and defines itself. Take this graphic below. The historical pattern timeline shows us when the well known Biotechnology companies and Agro-Chemical corporations actually took power and control over food production in the early 1990s when they manipulated politicians and directly wrote the book on regulations of their genetically modifying organisms to work in conjunction with industrially produced synthetics which work directly against ecosystem designs found out in Nature. Now take a look at how far the superweed problem has become as a result of increased pesticide usage. This is wasn't supposed to have happened given all the public relations and damage control propaganda they spewed into the Media and it's all worldview driven folks.
Graph from Iowa State University
People are going to have to start making responsible personal decisions soon. Who's side on the issue of universal soverignty are you going to choose ? Science claims that life on Earth has been around for over 100 millions years and that's fine. But an article dealing with important research on the stability of all earthwide ecosystems showed that during all those millions of years life the natural systems were always stable. But it references human beings creating agriculture 6,000 years ago and from that point on as people spread out across the planet taking thier agriculture with them, they have been making bad decisions ever since and all life has been greatly effected in a negative way. And horrifically, it has been the past 100+ years of this imaginary enlightenment and free thought that has brought our world climate change, various forms of pollution and species extinction to the point of where many experts say it is irreversible. Unfortunately most of those "Culture of Science" people don't want to admit this flaw in the past few decades of Scientific thinking and practice. Keep watch, the latest phrase in many science journals being used more often now is "Beyond the Point of no Return." Take a look at the graph here below. This isn't my made up invention or research, this came from Scientists who are being forced to admit the flaw of a 20th century which has championed free thought and critical thinking.
None of the clearly negative effects of human leadership and present consequences should prevent any reader here from practicng biomimicry within their own personal sphere of endeavours with regards to habitat restoration, agriculture, urban landscaping and home gardening. Everybody has a choice. The main problem is everyone on the planet has to do this.
Clarification on the differences between Science and Corporations in creating intellectual property in the form of patented products for obscene profit.
Very little of what is being discussed with regards to the biotechnology industry is actually "Sciences" or even "one of the sciences". What we're really talking about isn't any of the sciences at all, but rather technology or to be more specific using their own words, engineering. Most all true sciences are about studying things out in the natural world and figuring out how they work. The "scientific method" deals with how we successively refine our understanding of natural phenomena. It does not say anything about how this knowledge can, could, or should be applied. The sciences are essentially analytic in nature.
It's our world's corporations who along with their lawyers have created this idea of intellectual property based on the scientific work of others. Their research engineers were more interested in creating products to be patented. Yet their work was all based on the information provided by researchers funded by Academia. Their researchers may even use scientific methods in obtaining their goals, but they are not so much interested in the discovery of knowledge and the wisdom in using that knowledge as they are in focussing attention on creating something for profit.
In the process of misusing abd abusing ´this scientific knowledge, our natural world has been introduce to genetically modified organisms, , Nuclear Weapons, BPA in drinking water. We now have climate change, destruction of the Ozone, melting Arctic & Antarctic glaciers, Chernobyl, Thalidomide, Fukashima, plastic pollution in the oceans and dead zones, etc. All of these symptoms and negative consequences are the result of various irresponsible technological innovation brought to us by modern industrial engineering. Yes, they used information obtained from science, but they cannot lay the fault at the feet of science which was always about discovery and wonder. Science simply enabled these efforts by providing the basic knowledge needed, but the downside from what they created has produced unforeseen and unintended consequences in their various attempts to use that knowledge to satify this economic thing called consumerism. Biomimicry is really not all that expensive. In many cases it's a matter of changing one's practices and management without purchasing products and that is what nakes biomimetics unattractive to corporations.
Remember the movie Jurassic Park and that lunch room debate scene where actor Jeff Goldblum plays this highly articulate four-eyed genius (Dr Ian Malcolm) who tries to warn everyone about the dangers of playing God ? Of all the scenes in that movie, this one sticks with me the most because it is so accurate in it's content and reflective of today's reality. The Jurassic Park Technicians did not actually research all the science behind the genetics, but they did they misuse and abuse the discoveries of others for creating intellectual property and patented products (Dinosaurs). Biotechs are the same, they engineer product for profit. If they actually cared about feeding mankind and becoming proper custodians of the Earth, they would have pursued more of a mirror of how Nature accomplishes this through biomimicry. Instead, they are infected with the ideological doctrine that Nature is flawed, imperfect and poorly designed. Only they can fix it and anyone who tries to get in their way is an Anti-Science Luddite. It matters not that these people in opposition to their business model are indeed interested in other responsible sciences like Mycology, Soil Biology, etc, etc, etc. Here's the story line below. See if you recognize it better now.
Dr Ian Malcolm: "Don't you see the danger, John, inherent in what you're doing here? Genetic power is the most awesome force the planet's ever seen, but you wield it like a kid that's found his dad's gun."
The Jurassic Park Lawyer, Donald Gennaro: "It's hardly appropriate to start hurling generalizations..."
Dr Ian Malcolm: "If I may... Um, I'll tell you the problem with the scientific power that you're using here, it didn't require any discipline to attain it. You read what others had done and you took the next step. You didn't earn the knowledge for yourselves, so you don't take any responsibility for it. You stood on the shoulders of geniuses to accomplish something as fast as you could, and before you even knew what you had, you patented it, and packaged it, and slapped it on a plastic lunchbox, and now you're selling it, you wanna sell it."
Jurassic Park Owner/CEO, John Hammond: "I don't think you're giving us our due credit. Our scientists have done things which nobody's ever done before . . "
Dr Ian Malcolm: "Yeah, yeah, but your scientists were so preoccupied with whether or not they could that they didn't stop to think if they should."
Pausing here for a moment to fast forward. After trying to justify his technology by saying he could bring back California Condors and hearing Dr Ian Malcolm's continued resistence to the Jurassic Park's genetic modification technology, CEO John Hammond (Richard Attenborough), uses the same identical cowardly strategy often employed by most biotech apologists against the opponents of their technology.
CEO John Hammond: "I simply don't understand this Luddite attitude, especially from a scientist. I mean, how can we stand in the light of discovery, and not act?"
Dr Ian Malcolm: "What's so great about discovery? It's a violent penetrating act that scars what it explores. What you call discovery, I call the rape of the natural world."
I read one article recently by a major GMO apologist, Henry L. Miller, who was championing GM technology for Climate Change and creating drought resistant crops. Hence the need to genetically manipulate crop plant genomes to better withstand heat and drought. Monsanto for example has already done this with their Drought Guard patented crop seeds. This is not biomimicry. Biomimicry would be utilizing Nature's toolkit which has existed for 1000s of years. Mycorrhizal fungi act as an extension of a plant's root system and increase water and nutrient uptake anywhere from 200% to 800%. And it costs far less, often if managed properly after the initial soil inoculation, it's free. And ultimately that is the major reason for the major stumbling block and why the Biotechs and Agrochemical Corporations refuse to go down that road. Opportunities for biomimicry are all around everyone in the natural world. The problem is that they are not opportunities for most of this world's giant corporations and the governments that support them. Their geneticists know very little about how whole plant systems work outside their Lab. There is still very little these biotechs and their engineers know about the very organism, Agrobacterium, they have in the past used to infect target crop genomes with the transgenes. There have been some concerns with their use of the Agrobacterium which is a naturally occcuring soil organism. In fact take note of what one research paper said about our scientific understanding of Agrobacterium:
"Many of the blockbuster discoveries on Agrobacterium-plant interaction have been cited briefly in this narrative. However, much remains to be learned. The chemical signaling between Agrobacterium and plants in the natural environment of the plant’s rhizosphere has yet to be fully explored. In addition, the trafficking of the T-strand from the inception of the transfer process to the plant cell nucleus provides an area of fruitful research opportunities for interdisciplinary investigations. The full potential of using Agrobacterium as a mutagen and a transfer system for genes into an ever expanding number of eukaryotic cells has yet to be realized. After 100 years, the tale of Agrobacterium is not yet finished."
So apparently after all this time, there is still so much they do not know about this organism, but they're using it anyway. But wait, this version of the technology has to be regulated and it's really imperfect because they really have no clue where the information of the transgene will end up within the genome. In other words, in what context of other genes does this gene end up working with ? No problem they say, CRISPR will save the day.
"It won't be long before CRISPR allows us to bend nature to our will in the way that humans have dreamed of since prehistory. When that will is directed toward something constructive, the results could be fantastic—but they might also have unintentional or even calamitous consequences."
Jennifer Doudna - Co-Inventor of CRISPR
Seriously, "Bending Nature to our Will" ??? It's being promoted as more precise and accurate and because the biotechs will only be editing and deleting genes instead of introducing foreign genes by means of a viral facilitator, they've now convinced the government it has no need of regulation. This ignorant worldview of the meaninglessness of informational content within DNA even extends here as well. Take the issue of deleting the gene which causes browning in the common white button mushrooms. Read the warning on this potentially irresponsible act by Mycologist Paul Stamets on how this fungi will be effected by not having this anti-viral gene and the consequences if this specific genome gets out into the wild.
Supporters of giant corporate entites need to stop pretending that Biotechs are all about Science, when their true objective is mainly politics, economics and promoting a worldview after their own image. Their hands are dirty in political advocacy. Their writings only have value if they are discussing observable, repeatable, testable facts about natural phenomena. That's how real science is defined. Even then, you have to watch closely the materials and methods being used here, and see if the conclusions logically follow from the data. A true scientist ceases to be a scientist when he leaves off the original ideals that science was built upon. The understanding of the cause-and-effect structure of the natural world according to testable hypotheses. Biomimicry on the other hand is the practice of science that takes rigor, integrity, and humility. It views nature as having great vakue in it's designs which in turn should be replicated, rather than being put out there for promoting a profit. They have always had a problem with bioethics. They actually work very hard towards preventing people from having the ability to know the truth about our natural world and food we eat and that ultimately is the true Anti-Science.
