Ants and termites have a significant positive impact on crop yields in dryland agriculture, according to a paper published in Nature Communications. The authors say it is the first study to show a crop yield increase due to soil fauna in the field.
Ants and termites perform the same ecosystem service functions in dryland agriculture that earthworms perform in cooler and wetter areas, but the potential for ants and termites to provide these benefits has received little attention until now, they state.
Their studies on ants and termites in soil showed an average 36 per cent higher wheat crop yield under low tillage but otherwise conventional agricultural management.
A paper published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences says the mosquito branched off the same evolutionary tree as the house fly around 220 million years ago. Though only a few species of flies gain public attention - pests like house flies, March flies and mosquitoes – there are 152,000 named species of flies, representing around 10 per cent of all species on Earth. The March fly branched off some 175 million years ago, while the common house fly branched off about 50 million years ago.
Flies originated in wet environments and as they evolved they adapted to feed in almost any nutrient-rich substrate in almost any environment on earth.
A combination of forest byproducts and crustacean shells may be the key to removing radioactive materials from drinking water, researchers from North Carolina State University have found.
The new material is a combination of hemicellulose, a byproduct of forest materials, and chitosan, which are crustacean shells that have been crushed into a powder. It not only absorbs water, but can actually extract contaminates, such as radioactive iodide, from the water itself. The material forms a solid foam and has potential applications beyond radioactive materials. The researchers found that it has the ability to remove heavy metals, such as arsenic, from water or salt from sea water to make clean drinking water.
