entomology

Dec 2, 2014

Study Finds Insects Play Important Role in Dealing with Garbage on NYC Streets

In the city that never sleeps, it’s easy to overlook the insects underfoot. But that doesn’t mean they’re not working hard. A new study shows that insects play a significant role in disposing of garbage on the streets of Manhattan. 

Nov 19, 2014

Warmer Temperatures Limit Impact of Parasites, Boost Pest Populations

Research shows that some insect pests are thriving in warm, urban environments and developing earlier, limiting the impact of parasitoid wasps that normally help keep those pest populations in check. 

Nov 17, 2014

Something Resistant This Way Comes: An Insect Mystery

An NC State entomology researcher has found that a feared crop pest found in North Carolina is becoming resistant to a common method used to protect crops. 

Nov 12, 2014

Inhabit(ants) of New York City: High Diversity Underfoot in Urban Environments

Cities have more species diversity than you’d expect. A study of ants in Manhattan found not only a wide range of species, but also significant differences in the levels of biodiversity in different urban areas. 

Sep 30, 2014

The Root(worm) of the Problem: Unexpected Obstacles on the Road to Research

Scientists often have to spend an enormous amount of time becoming experts in things outside their field of study in order to do research they think is important. This is where a corn-eating beetle and a guy named Clay Chu come in. 

Sep 2, 2014

Asian Camel Crickets Now Common in U.S. Homes

Non-native species of camel crickets, known for their propensity for eating anything, including each other, have spread into homes across the eastern United States. 

Aug 28, 2014

Cities as a Glimpse of the Future

How researchers learned that cities may serve as a crystal ball for the impact of climate change on an important insect pest. 

Aug 27, 2014

Three Things You Didn’t Know About the Arachnids That Live on Your Face

Right now, in the general vicinity of your nose, there are at least two species of microscopic mites living in your pores. Scientists have just published a study about these little-known mites. 

Aug 27, 2014

Museum Specimens, Modern Cities Show How an Insect Pest Will Respond to Climate Change

Researchers from North Carolina State University have found that century-old museum specimens hold clues to how global climate change will affect a common insect pest that can weaken and kill trees – and the news is not good. 

Jul 30, 2014

Urbanization: Good for Pests, Bad for Trees

Editor’s Note: This is a guest post by Steve Frank, an assistant professor of entomology at NC State.The post first appeared on Frank’s blog, Insect Ecology and Integrated Pest Management. My wife is from a neighborhood outside Baltimore called Lawyers Hill. This is where, in the 18th century, lawyers (and I assume doctors and other gentlemen)… 

May 23, 2014

Can ‘Sticky Bands’ Protect Your Trees From Cankerworms?

Editor’s note: This is a guest post by Steve Frank, an entomology researcher at NC State. If you live in the eastern United States, you may recently have noticed a ton of caterpillars hanging from trees on fine silk threads. Maybe you picked caterpillars off co-workers or family members when they came in from outdoors. These… 

May 20, 2014

Researchers Sequence Genome of Primitive Termite

North Carolina State University entomologists are part of a research team that has for the first time sequenced the genome of a member of the termite order, the dampwood termite (Zootermopsis nevadensis). A paper reports the findings today in Nature Communications. The findings on the genetic blueprint of the dampwood termite, one of the world’s… 

Mar 13, 2014

What’s Eating You?

It’s a jungle out there. Humans can be infected by more than 1,400 parasites – viruses, bacteria, fungi, etc. It can be bad enough when one nasty parasite takes hold – it’s certainly no fun to be stricken with tuberculosis – but what happens if you have two simultaneous infections? If one infection is diagnosed… 

Feb 5, 2014

Ants…In…Space

Editor’s note: This is a guest post by David Hunt, a writer in NC State’s News Services office. When NC State postdoc Clint Penick collected a group of pavement ants in a small mountain community in Western North Carolina last summer, he never dreamed they’d travel farther than his biology lab in Raleigh. Today, as they orbit… 

Sep 4, 2013

Nature in Your Backyard: Very Hungry Caterpillars

[Editor’s Note: This is a guest post by Holly Menninger, director of public science in NC State’s Your Wild Life program. The post originally ran on the Your Wild Life blog.] Over the weekend, our friend and veteran NC State science newsman Matt Shipman took a barefooted step out onto his back porch to enjoy a little…