New Zealand Flatworms Play a Huge Role in Agriculture

In our fourth and final lab for Biology 100, we are dealing with the beetle larva mealworms. This worm-like animal is, in fact, not a worm; they are larva for the tenebrionid beetle. These larvae are most commonly used in order to feed household pets. For example: reptiles, fish, and birds. Tenebrio larvae are also considered pests to the most businesses.

Once upon a time in a lab far far away there was a very curious young scientist named James. James is a very young man who one day stumbled upon a new subject flatworms. He found early in his research that they can be very dangerous but on the other hand can help the earth. When he went into his lab early one morning he discovered that the worm had many segments so he tried an experiment if on piece of flatworm can regenerate into an entirely new form of flatworm. His experiment was a smashing success. He was a very known scientist all around his house. He was very excited and had just found a groundbreaking discovery for flatworms.

The Earthworm is a crucial component of the environment due to their interactions with soil which then, in turn, provides benefits to other living organisms such as their burrowing behavior, which allows nutrients, air, and water to delve deeper into the soil. After soil is swallowed by the pharynx, the food matter is sent through the esophagus and into the crop, where the soil is stored until it interacts with the gizzard. The main function of the gizzard to grind the soils so that it can enter the intestine, where gland cells within release fluid to aid in the process. When organic matter is finally excreted from the intestine to the anus through the worm through the process of casting, more nutrients are introduce into the soil that benefit plant life. The earthworm also has a brain located behind its pharynx, called the cerebral ganglia, that is crucial for movement. The

The Irish discovered the problem when they found that they were harvesting black potatoes. At first they blamed the problem on poor weather, or insects. They just figured that it was another poor farming season. The actual spreading of the disease was that its pores were carried in the wind and land in pits where potatoes were to be planted. The disease would not die in the extreme winter cold and would double the problem for the next spring’s crop.

If mealworms are attracted to moisture, and tend to move away from hardened food, why would the mealworm move towards bran flakes and begin to go inside the pile.

Issue: The environmental issue that I have chosen is the impact that invasive species have on the environment. The impact that invasive species have on the environment is vast, yet little is done about it. This issue is extremely important and will impact the world for generations to come. In this paper, I hope to learn about the effect they have on environment and what we can do about it.

Just last month, a deadly worm was found in not one, but four locations in the U.S. state of Florida. This worm, until recently, was documented in only twenty-one countries, most of which were island nations. Although the New Guinea Flatworm may seem as a highly dangerous predator, it is only about two inches in length and mainly targets snails for its nutrition. These worms are not harmful to humans, but they will feast on any soft creature in the soil. In order to eat snails or any critters with a hard shell, the New Guinea Flatworm latches itself onto the shell’s opening and then spits out its own stomach through the opening in its belly. This allows an acidic goo to dissolve the snail’s flesh and the worm can continue on with its meal by swallowing both its stomach and the snail.

Barbers Pole worm (Haemonchus contortus) is most commonly found in southern Queensland and Northern New South Wales it is most common to find the worms here because is humid but no to humid in order to kill off the worms and not too cold to kill the worms. Refer to figure 1 in order to see where about they are most commonly found. The Barbers worm is found in the 4th stomach (abomasum) they live in that area of the stomach because the most common way to detect weather or not there is any worms in the stomach is to conduct a worm egg test commonly known as FEC (faeces egg count).

The new guinea flatworm is from the united states of America.this worm is native to the island of New Guinea where it was originally to have been found in. You can find these worms in tropical areas,coastlands ,planted forests, riparian zones shrubs and urban areas as well.it feeds on earthworms ,slugs and arthopods. This worm can harm the snail called The Giant East African Snail. This worm also can mainly eat mollusks and it especially likes to prey on snail. To hunt for it's prey the worm deposits itself to the bottom of a cabbage leave. It also can follow snail mucus trails to find it`s trail. It also has a infectious rate at least 14.1% and this thing usually lives on cabbage leaves. This worm not only affects the whole population of animals or a specific area this worm can affect humans as

The successful application of these rules does not depend only on the effort of an individual country, but also on the effort of surrounding countries. European Union has created EU Regulation on the prevention and management of invasive alien species in 2014, based on prevention, early detection, eradication, and management. Nevertheless, the past efforts to prevent and eradicate invasive species are not always productive. Within the European Union, UK is one of the countries which have made significant progress in the suppression of invasive species (Sambrook et al.

Spruce budworm (Choristoneura fumiferana (Clemens)) outbreaks have an important effect on succession of balsam fir (Abies balsamea (L.) Mill.) and spruce (Picea spp.) stands in eastern Canadian forests (MacLean 2004). Spruce budworm feeds repeatedly on annual shoots of balsam fir and spruce and leads to large-scale growth reduction and mortality (MacLean and Ostaff 1989). When overstory tree mortality occurs from defoliation, it creates gaps that allow understory plants to get an opportunity to release (Osawa 1994; Kemball et al. 2005). Defoliation also changes the competitive interactions between host fir-spruce and non-host species and may release the latter.

Purpose: We want to see if putting a worm or organism in different temperature will change the rate of CO2. We predict cold will make the process slow down. Hot will speed it up, and with room

Thresholds similar to red-legged earth mites, crop damage a main determinate in wether control is needed.

Mealworms have a very interesting ecology. They are the 2nd stage in the life cycle of the darkling beetle. Their scientific name is Alphitobius diaperinus. They are also considered pests in the poultry industry. Mealworms have 6 legs and they are located at the front of their body. The mealworms go through their stage of the life cycle in 40-100 days.

In Charles Mann’s book, 1493, he talks about several problems throughout the world including the movement of organisms from one location to a foreign location. One example that Mann provides his readers with was, worms killing terraces in Ifugao (Mann 495). The worm species Pheretima and Polypheretima are invading terraces and killing them because of their hungry appetite. These giant earthworms came from oversees and can grow up to two feet in size. They leave huge tunnels and water sluices out of them, killing the rice plants at the same time (Mann 495). These worms are causing the terraces to become porous and sponge-like, which should never be terms used for a terrace. Another example that Mann uses is, the golden apple snail (Pomacea canaliculata) which was sent to Taiwan from