A pest is a plant or animal detrimental to humans or human concerns including crops, livestock, and forestry. The term is also used of organisms that cause a nuisance, such as in the home. An older usage is of a deadly epidemic disease, specifically plague. In its broadest sense, a pest is a competitor of humanity.[1][2]Contents1 Concept 2 By taxon2.1 Vertebrate pests2.1.1 Birds 2.1.2 Amphibians 2.1.3 Mammals2.2 Invertebrates2.2.1 Insects and arachnids2.2.1.1 Agricultural and domestic arthropods 2.2.1.2 Tree and forest pests 2.2.1.3 Ectoparasites2.2.2 Nematodes 2.2.3 Gastropod
Gastropod molluscs2.3 Plant diseases 2.4 Weeds3 See also 4 References 5 Further reading 6 External linksConcept[edit] A pest is any living organism, whether animal, plant or fungus, which is invasive or troublesome to plants or animals, human or human concerns, livestock, or human structures
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The varied carpet beetle (Anthrenus verbasci) is a 3 mm-long beetle belonging to the family Dermestidae. They are a common species, often considered a pest of domestic houses and, particularly, natural history museums where the larvae may damage natural fibers and can damage carpets, furniture, clothing, and insect collections. A. verbasci was also the first insect to be shown to have an annual behavioral rhythm[1] and to date remains a classic example of circannual cycles in animals.Contents1 Description1.1 Life cycle2 Distribution and habitat 3 Diet and behaviour3.1 Predators4 Interaction with humans4.1 As a domestic pest 4.2 As a museum pest5 References 6 External linksDescription[edit]Larval form of Anthrenus verbasci (4.6 mm long)Adult A. verbasci range in length from 1.7 to 3.5 mm (0.07 to 0.14 in). The body is rounded, almost spherical
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Feeding is the process by which organisms, typically animals, obtain food. Terminology often uses either the suffixes -vore, -vory, -vorous from Latin vorare, meaning "to devour", or -phage, -phagy, -phagous from Greek φαγειν (phagein), meaning "to eat".Contents1 Evolutionary history 2 Evolutionary adaptations 3 Classification3.1 By mode of ingestion 3.2 By mode of digestion 3.3 By food type4 Storage behaviours 5 Others 6 See also 7 References7.1 NotesEvolutionary history[edit] The evolution of different feeding strategies is varied with some feeding strategies evolving several times in independent lineages. In terrestrial vertebrates, the earliest forms were large amphibious piscivores 400 million years ago
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Ecology
Ecology (from Greek: οἶκος, "house", or "environment"; -λογία, "study of")[A] is the branch of biology[1] which studies the interactions among organisms and their environment. Objects of study include interactions of organisms with each other and with abiotic components of their environment. Topics of interest include the biodiversity, distribution, biomass, and populations of organisms, as well as cooperation and competition within and between species. Ecosystems
Ecosystems are dynamically interacting systems of organisms, the communities they make up, and the non-living components of their environment. Ecosystem
Ecosystem processes, such as primary production, pedogenesis, nutrient cycling, and niche construction, regulate the flux of energy and matter through an environment. These processes are sustained by organisms with specific life history traits
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A weed is a plant considered undesirable in a particular situation, "a plant in the wrong place". Examples commonly are plants unwanted in human-controlled settings, such as farm fields, gardens, lawns, and parks. Taxonomically, the term "weed" has no botanical significance, because a plant that is a weed in one context is not a weed when growing in a situation where it is in fact wanted, and where one species of plant is a valuable crop plant, another species in the same genus might be a serious weed, such as a wild bramble growing among cultivated loganberries. In the same way, volunteer crops (plants) are regarded as weeds in a subsequent crop. Many plants that people widely regard as weeds also are intentionally grown in gardens and other cultivated settings, in which case they are sometimes called beneficial weeds
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Echium plantagineum, commonly known as purple viper's-bugloss[1] or Paterson's curse, is a species of Echium native to western and southern Europe (from southern England south to Iberia and east to the Crimea), northern Africa, and southwestern Asia (east to Georgia).[2][3] It has also been introduced to Australia, South Africa and United States, where it is an invasive weed. Due to a high concentration of pyrrolizidine alkaloids, it is poisonous to grazing livestock, especially those with simple digestive systems, like horses.Contents1 Description 2 Taxonomy 3 Invasive species 4 Toxicity 5 References 6 External linksDescription[edit] Echium plantagineum is a winter annual plant growing to 20–60 cm tall, with rough, hairy, lanceolate leaves up to 14 cm long
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Mites are small arthropods belonging to the class Arachnida and the subclass Acari (also known as Acarina). The term "mite" refers to the members of several groups in Acari but it is not a clade, and excludes the ticks, order Ixodida. Mites and ticks are characterised by the body being divided into two regions, the cephalothorax or prosoma (there is no separate head), and an opisthosoma. The scientific discipline devoted to the study of ticks and mites is called acarology. Most mites are tiny, less than 1 mm (0.04 in) in length, and have a simple, unsegmented body plan. Their small size makes them easily overlooked; some species live in water, many live in soil as decomposers, others live on plants, sometimes creating galls, while others again are predators or parasites. This last group includes the commercially important Varroa parasite of honey bees, as well as the scabies mite of humans
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(see text)SynonymsNematodes Burmeister, 1837 Nematoidea
Nematoidea sensu stricto Cobb, 1919 Nemates Cobb, 1919 Nemata Cobb, 1919 emend.The nematodes (UK: /ˈnɛmətoʊdz/, US: /ˈniːməˌtoʊdz/) or roundworms constitute the phylum Nematoda (also called Nemathelminthes).[2][3] They are a diverse animal phylum inhabiting a broad range of environments
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See text.Diversity65,000 to 80,000 species[3][4]The Gastropoda
Gastropoda or gastropods, more commonly known as snails and slugs, are a large taxonomic class within the phylum Mollusca. The class Gastropoda
Gastropoda includes snails and slugs of all kinds and all sizes from microscopic to Achatina achatina, the largest known land gastropod. There are many thousands of species of sea snails and sea slugs, as well as freshwater snails, freshwater limpets, land snails and land slugs. The class Gastropoda
Gastropoda contains a vast total of named species, second only to the insects in overall number. The fossil history of this class goes back to the Late Cambrian
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A generalist species is able to thrive in a wide variety of environmental conditions and can make use of a variety of different resources (for example, a heterotroph with a varied diet). A specialist species can thrive only in a narrow range of environmental conditions or has a limited diet. Most organisms do not all fit neatly into either group, however. Some species are highly specialized (the most extreme case being monophagy), others less so, and some can tolerate many different environments. In other words, there is a continuum from highly-specialized to broadly-generalist species.Generalists such as raccoons are sometimes able to adapt to urban environments.Omnivores are usually generalists. Herbivores are often specialists, but those that eat a variety of plants may be considered generalists. A well-known example of a specialist animal is the koala, which subsists almost entirely on eucalyptus leaves
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Oligophagy refers to the eating of only a few specific foods. The term is usually associated with insect dietary behaviour.[1] Organisms may exhibit narrow or specific oligophagy where the diet is restricted to a very few foods or broad oligophagy where the organism feeds on a wide variety of specific foods but none other.[2] Polyphagy, on the contrary, refers to eating a broad spectrum of foods. In the insect world it refers usually to insects that feed on plants belonging to different families. Examples[edit] The diet of the Yucca moths is restricted to the developing fruits of species of Yucca[2] while the sea hare, Aplysia juliana (Quoy & Gaimard), is found on and feeds only on a single alga, Ulva lactuca (Linnaeus) in East Australian waters.[3] These are both narrow oligophages. Conversely the migratory locust may be said to be broadly oligophagous or even polyphagous.[2] Footnotes[edit]^ Oligophagy on Dictionary.com
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In biology or human geography, population growth is the increase in the number of individuals in a population. Global human population growth amounts to around 83 million annually[1], or 1.1% per year. The global population has grown from 1 billion in 1800 to 7.6 billion[2] in 2017. It is expected to keep growing, and estimates have put the total population at 8.6 billion by mid-2030, 9.8 billion by mid-2050 and 11.2 billion by 2100[3]
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Lyme disease, also known as Lyme borreliosis, is an infectious disease caused by bacteria of the Borrelia
Borrelia type which is spread by ticks.[2] The most common sign of infection is an expanding area of redness on the skin, known as erythema migrans, that begins at the site of a tick bite about a week after it has occurred.[1] The rash is typically neither itchy nor painful.[1] Approximately 25–50% of infected people do not develop a rash.[1] Other early symptoms may include fever, headache and feeling tired.[1] If untreated, symptoms may include loss of the ability to move one or both sides of the face, joint
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The carrying capacity of a biological species in an environment is the maximum population size of the species that the environment can sustain indefinitely, given the food, habitat, water, and other necessities available in the environment. In population biology, carrying capacity is defined as the environment's maximal load,[1] which is different from the concept of population equilibrium. Its effect on population dynamics may be approximated in a logistic model, although this simplification ignores the possibility of overshoot which real systems may exhibit. Carrying capacity
Carrying capacity was originally used to determine the number of animals that could graze on a segment of land without destroying it. Later, the idea was expanded to more complex populations, like humans.[2] For the human population, more complex variables such as sanitation and medical care are sometimes considered as part of the necessary establishment
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In ecology, r/K selection theory relates to the selection of combinations of traits in an organism that trade off between quantity and quality of offspring. The focus upon either increased quantity of offspring at the expense of individual parental investment of r-strategists, or reduced quantity of offspring with a corresponding increased parental investment of K-strategists, varies widely, seemingly to promote success in particular environments. The terminology of r/K-selection was coined by the ecologists Robert MacArthur and E. O. Wilson in 1970[1] based on their work on island biogeography;[2] although the concept of the evolution of life history strategies has a longer history [3] (see e.g
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Pigeons and doves constitute the animal family Columbidae
Columbidae and the order Columbiformes, which includes about 42 genera and 310 species. The related word "columbine" refers to pigeons and doves. Pigeons and doves are stout-bodied birds with short necks, and short slender bills that, in some species, feature fleshy ceres. They primarily feed on seeds, fruits, and plants. This family occurs worldwide, but the greatest variety is in the Indomalaya and Australasia
Australasia ecozones. Pigeons and doves are likely the most common birds in the world. The distinction between "doves" and "pigeons" is not consistent. In modern everyday speech, as opposed to scientific usage or former usage, "dove" frequently indicates a pigeon that is white or nearly white. However, some people use the terms "dove" and "pigeon" interchangeably
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