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Leaf Miners
A leaf miner is any one of numerous species of insects in which the larval stage lives in, and eats, the leaf tissue of plants. The vast majority of leaf-mining insects are moths ( Lepidoptera), sawflies ( Symphyta, a paraphyletic group which Apocrita (wasps, bees and ants) evolved from), and flies ( Diptera). Some beetles also exhibit this behavior. Like woodboring beetles, leaf miners are protected from many predators and plant defenses by feeding within the tissues of the leaves, selectively eating only the layers that have the least amount of cellulose. When consuming '' Quercus robur'' (English oak), they also selectively feed on tissues containing lower levels of tannin, a deterrent chemical produced in great abundance by the tree. The pattern of the feeding tunnel and the layer of the leaf being mined is often diagnostic of the insect responsible, sometimes even to species level. The mine often contains frass, or droppings, and the pattern of frass deposition, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Woodboring Beetle
The term woodboring beetle encompasses many species and families of beetles whose larval or adult forms eat and destroy wood (i.e., are xylophagous). In the woodworking industry, larval stages of some are sometimes referred to as woodworms. The three most species-rich families of woodboring beetles are longhorn beetles, bark beetles and weevils, and metallic flat-headed borers. Woodboring is thought to be the ancestral ecology of beetles, and bores made by beetles in fossil wood extend back to the earliest fossil record of beetles in the Early Permian (Asselian), around 295-300 million years ago. Ecology Woodboring beetles usually attack dying or dead trees. In forest settings, they are important in the turnover of trees by culling weak trees, thus allowing new growth to occur. They are also important as primary decomposers of trees within forest systems, allowing for the recycling of nutrients locked away in the relatively decay-resilient woody material of trees. To reach matu ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Insecticide
Insecticides are pesticides used to kill insects. They include ovicides and larvicides used against insect eggs and larvae, respectively. The major use of insecticides is in agriculture, but they are also used in home and garden settings, industrial buildings, for vector control, and control of insect parasites of animals and humans. Acaricides, which kill mites and ticks, are not strictly insecticides, but are usually classified together with insecticides. Some insecticides (including common bug sprays) are effective against other non-insect arthropods as well, such as scorpions, spiders, etc. Insecticides are distinct from insect repellents, which repel but do not kill. Sales In 2016 insecticides were estimated to account for 18% of worldwide pesticide sales. Worldwide sales of insecticides in 2018 were estimated as $ 18.4 billion, of which 25% were neonicotinoids, 17% were pyrethroids, 13% were diamides, and the rest were many other classes which sold for less th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Garden
A garden is a planned space, usually outdoors, set aside for the cultivation, display, and enjoyment of plants and other forms of nature. The single feature identifying even the wildest wild garden is ''control''. The garden can incorporate both natural and artificial materials. Gardens often have design features including statuary, follies, pergolas, trellises, stumperies, dry creek beds, and water features such as fountains, ponds (with or without fish), waterfalls or creeks. Some gardens are for ornamental purposes only, while others also produce food crops, sometimes in separate areas, or sometimes intermixed with the ornamental plants. Food-producing gardens are distinguished from farms by their smaller scale, more labor-intensive methods, and their purpose (enjoyment of a pastime or self-sustenance rather than producing for sale, as in a market garden). Flower gardens combine plants of different heights, colors, textures, and fragrances to create interest and deli ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Crop
A crop is a plant that can be grown and harvested extensively for profit or subsistence. In other words, a crop is a plant or plant product that is grown for a specific purpose such as food, Fiber, fibre, or fuel. When plants of the same species are cultivated in rows or other systematic arrangements, it is called crop field or crop cultivation. Most crops are harvested as food for humans or fodder for livestock. Important non-food crops include horticulture, floriculture, and industrial crops. Horticulture crops include plants used for other crops (e.g. fruit trees). Floriculture crops include bedding plants, houseplants, flowering garden and pot plants, cut cultivated greens, and cut flowers. Industrial crops are produced for clothing (fiber crops e.g. cotton), biofuel (energy crops, algae fuel), or medicine (medicinal plants). Production There was an increase in global production of primary crops by 56% between 2000 and 2022 to 9.6 billion tonnes, which represents a 0 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pest (organism)
A pest is any organism harmful to humans or human concerns. The term is particularly used for creatures that damage crops, livestock, and forestry or cause a nuisance to people, especially in their homes. Humans have modified the environment for their own purposes and are intolerant of other creatures occupying the same space when their activities impact adversely on human objectives. Thus, an elephant is unobjectionable in its natural habitat but a pest when it tramples crops. Some animals are disliked because they bite or sting; wolves, snakes, wasps, ants, bed bugs, fleas and ticks belong in this category. Others enter the home; these include houseflies, which land on and contaminate food; beetles, which tunnel into the woodwork; and other animals that scuttle about on the floor at night, like rats and cockroaches, which are often associated with unsanitary conditions. Agricultural and horticultural crops are attacked by a wide variety of pests, the most important being ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Fruit
In botany, a fruit is the seed-bearing structure in flowering plants (angiosperms) that is formed from the ovary after flowering. Fruits are the means by which angiosperms disseminate their seeds. Edible fruits in particular have long propagated using the movements of humans and other animals in a symbiotic relationship that is the means for seed dispersal for the one group and nutrition for the other; humans, and many other animals, have become dependent on fruits as a source of food. Consequently, fruits account for a substantial fraction of the world's agricultural output, and some (such as the apple and the pomegranate) have acquired extensive cultural and symbolic meanings. In common language and culinary usage, ''fruit'' normally means the seed-associated fleshy structures (or produce) of plants that typically are sweet (or sour) and edible in the raw state, such as apples, bananas, grapes, lemons, oranges, and strawberries. In botanical usage, the term ''fruit'' als ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Instar
An instar (, from the Latin '' īnstar'' 'form, likeness') is a developmental stage of arthropods, such as insects, which occurs between each moult (''ecdysis'') until sexual maturity is reached. Arthropods must shed the exoskeleton in order to grow or assume a new form. Differences between instars can often be seen in altered body proportions, colors, patterns, changes in the number of body segments or head width. After shedding their exoskeleton (moulting), the juvenile arthropods continue in their life cycle until they either pupate or moult again. The instar period of growth is fixed; however, in some insects, like the salvinia stem-borer moth, the number of instars depends on early larval nutrition. Some arthropods can continue to moult after sexual maturity, but the stages between these subsequent moults are generally not called instars. For most insect species, an ''instar'' is the developmental stage of the larval forms of holometabolous (complete metamorphism) or ny ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Frass
Frass refers loosely to the more or less solid excreta of insects, and to certain other related matter. Definition and etymology ''Frass'' is an informal term and accordingly it is variously used and variously defined. It is derived from the German word ''Fraß'', which means the food takeup of an animal.M. Clark and O. Thyen. The Oxford-Duden German Dictionary. Publisher: Oxford University Press 1999. The English usage applies to excreted residues of anything that insects had eaten, and similarly, to other chewed or mined refuse that insects leave behind. It does not generally refer to fluids such as honeydew, but the point does not generally arise, and is largely ignored in this article. Such usage in English originated in the mid-nineteenth century at the latest. Modern technical English sources differ on the precise definition, though there is little direct contradiction on the practical realities. One glossary from the early twentieth century speaks of "...excrement; us ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Species
A species () is often defined as the largest group of organisms in which any two individuals of the appropriate sexes or mating types can produce fertile offspring, typically by sexual reproduction. It is the basic unit of Taxonomy (biology), classification and a taxonomic rank of an organism, as well as a unit of biodiversity. Other ways of defining species include their karyotype, DNA sequence, morphology (biology), morphology, behaviour, or ecological niche. In addition, palaeontologists use the concept of the chronospecies since fossil reproduction cannot be examined. The most recent rigorous estimate for the total number of species of eukaryotes is between 8 and 8.7 million. About 14% of these had been described by 2011. All species (except viruses) are given a binomial nomenclature, two-part name, a "binomen". The first part of a binomen is the name of a genus to which the species belongs. The second part is called the specific name (zoology), specific name or the specific ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tannin
Tannins (or tannoids) are a class of astringent, polyphenolic biomolecules that bind to and Precipitation (chemistry), precipitate proteins and various other organic compounds including amino acids and alkaloids. The term ''tannin'' is widely applied to any large polyphenolic compound containing sufficient hydroxyls and other suitable groups (such as carboxyls) to form strong complexes with various macromolecules. The term ''tannin'' (from scientific French ''tannin'', from French ''tan'' "crushed oak bark", ''tanner'' "to tan", cognate with English language, English ''tanning'', Medieval Latin ''tannare'', from Proto-Celtic ''*tannos'' "oak") refers to the abundance of these compounds in oak Bark (botany), bark, which was used in Tanning (leather), tanning animal Hide (skin), hides into leather. The tannin compounds are widely distributed in many species of plants, where they play a role in protection from predation (acting as pesticides) and might help in regulating plant ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
