Parasitic flies turn fire ants into zombies

[usregimechange]

It sounds like something out of science fiction: zombie fire ants. But it's all too real.

Fire ants wander aimlessly away from the mound.

Eventually their heads fall off, and they die.

The strange part is that researchers at the University of Texas at Austin and Texas A&M's AgriLife Extension Service say making "zombies" out of fire ants is a good thing.

"It's a tool — they're not going to completely wipe out the fire ant, but it's a way to control their population," said Scott Ludwig , an integrated pest management specialist with the AgriLife Extension Service in Overton , in East Texas .

The tool is the tiny phorid fly, native to a region of South America where the fire ants in Texas originated. Researchers have learned that there are as many as 23 phorid species along with pathogens that attack fire ants to keep their population and movements under control.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/mcclatchy/20090512/sc_mcclatchy/3231765


:wow:

[rpannier]

1. They say now

Wait 5 years and see how this actually turns out.

[KT2000]

2. What else do they

turn into zombies? Any of the good insects and humans?

[spanone]

3. sounds like republicans to me

[Hardrada]

5. Definitely a GOP thing!

[WillParkinson]

4. People will never learn...

You cannot control the natural balance. Something always changes when you do.

Like bringing the Japanese Ladybugs to the US. That went over real well.

[Sal Minella]

14. And the English sparrow and starlings and nutria and kudzu and buckthorn.....

[redqueen]

6. Holy crap.

:scared:

[90-percent]

7. hmmmmm

Boy does this have UNINTENDED CONSEQUENCES written all over it!

Maybe they can get some GM plants to take care of the flies after they overpopulate?

-90% Jimmy

[DainBramaged]

19. Fuck it not worth the reply

[csziggy]

20. They've been studying the phorid flies for a very long time

And doing limited controlled releases. For information directly from the Texas source, go to http://uts.cc.utexas.edu/~gilbert/research/fireants/faqans.html#what

The environmental assessment was done in 1995: http://uts.cc.utexas.edu/~gilbert/research/fireants/envassess.html

So far the phorid flies seem to be adapting successfully:

Fire ant-attacking fly spreading rapidly in Texas

Parasitic flies introduced to control red imported fire ants have spread over four million acres in central and southeast Texas since the flies' introduction in 1999, researchers at The University of Texas at Austin have discovered using new flytraps they developed.

Researchers at the Brackenridge Field Laboratory (BFL) have released multiple species of the parasitic flies, originally from Brazil and Argentina, to control invasive fire ants without pesticides. The fly larvae develop inside the ants and kill their host.

Dr. Ed LeBrun, a researcher at BFL, developed the new flytraps that allowed him to map the spread of the first species of phorid fly successfully introduced. The fly, Pseudacteon tricuspis, was introduced to several locations in Texas beginning in 1999 with BFL in central Austin.

The small traps capture fire ants first by luring them in with ants from a disturbed mound. The flies follow the ants into the traps and then become stuck on strips of flypaper when they take a break from attacking their victims. Researchers place traps around fire ant mounds along roads and analyze the flies they catch.

They have found the introduced phorid flies attacking imported fire ants in more than 12 counties and 3.5 million acres in Central Texas and seven counties and 1.5 million acres in the Coastal Bend region of Texas.

Phorids got a slow start after introduction due to drought in Texas from 1999-2001, says Dr. Larry Gilbert, director of the fire ant research program and professor of integrative biology, but they are now spreading three-to-10 miles per year from initial introduction sites.

In addition to Brazilian and Argentinean strains of P. tricuspis, two other phorid species were introduced since 2004, and Gilbert says the smallest one, P. curvatus, is also on the march.

Gilbert says these initial successes should be seen as "getting to first base" in the attempt to control red imported fire ants with phorid flies.

In their native Argentina, where Gilbert and his collaborators study the ants and flies, fire ants are assaulted by as many as 12 different kinds of phorid fly in an area smaller than a football field.

"No single phorid species will be a magic bullet," he says.

More: http://www.bio-medicine.org/biology-news/Fire-ant-attacking-fly-spreading-rapidly-in-Texas-3687-1/

The phorids are so specialized that different varieties attack different sizes of worker ants.

[chollybocker]

8. That's great.

Now TX has to deal with "parasitic flies," aka "23 phorid species along with pathogens". Makes sense to me! ;

[Obamanaut]

17. "parasitic flies", "incurious george." if there is a god, he must really

hate Texas

[mrs_p]

9. this is not unusual in the entomologic world

it's a natural strategy for many insects

[Buck Laser]

10. I knew a biologist at Northern Illinois University

who was working on breeding microscopic wasps that attacked agricultural pests. I'm not gonna automatically suspect every attempt like this. I think it's probably less risky than genetic modification on plants we eat. If this fire ant thing works, the waspes would probably die off themselves.

[kestrel91316]

11. I especially like the heads falling off part. There's no love lost between

me and the damned fire ants. They probably started me down the road to all my other insect bite allergies, way back when I was 2 and didn't know not to sweep away their mound with my toy broom.

[deoxyribonuclease]

12. Good to see this making progress!

I was briefly involved in this research during my undergrad studies at UT. I worked with Dr. Rob Plowes (he was a PhD student at the time) and Dr. Lawrence Gilbert in observing the phorid flies and their attacks on ant nests in limited trials in the university's field lab. Their research didn't reveal any indication that that the phorid flies themselves would become a pest due to host specificity - it appears the the species they tested only attack one species: Solenopsis invicta.

[eppur_se_muova]

13. There's a fungus that does this too ...

http://forums.photobucket.com/showthread.php?t=15713

(sadly, the photos are no longer available)

[usregimechange]

15. I want photos or a good video

[eppur_se_muova]

16. The photos are pretty gross -- or great, in the "Calvin & Hobbes" sense.

Wish they hadn't been removed. :(

Ah, Google, our true friend :) ... http://bugguide.net/node/view/230781

[rug]

18. "Eventually their heads fall off, and they die."

Best sentence of the month.

[Blaze Diem]

21. Can we set the flies loose at Faux News next time the Cheney Family shows up?

"Eventually their heads fall off, and they die."

What a lovely thought.