From farm to lab, listening to insects with light may soon be all the rage
Save time by listening to our audio articles as you multitaskThe established approach to detecting insect pests, moths in particular, is to employ pheromone-baited sticky traps. Pheromones are chemicals which animals use to communicate—and especially to attract members of the opposite sex. An appropriately baited sticky trap gives a fair idea of the number and type of pests around, but not with sufficient detail for the precise application of pest control measures.
FlightSensor’s technology builds on the work of Eamonn Keogh, one of FarmSense’s founders, who is also a professor at the University of California’s Riverside campus. Dr Keogh helped pioneer the field of “computational entomology”, in which special algorithms receive data from scanners and learn to determine the sex and species of passing critters. FarmSense claims to have more digital data on insects than the rest of the world combined.
FarmSense’s optical approach works better than microphones for recording wing beats because the insects under investigation are quiet and the sound they emit thus easily lost in background noise. Bees and houseflies buzz about noisily. But moths and the trichogrammatid wasps that parasitise them , and are therefore of almost equal interest to farmers, are all but inaudible. They are easily detectable by laser, though.
There should be ecological benefits as well. In particular, pesticides of all sorts often have side-effects on benign, and even desirable insects. Using a more targeted approach which deployed less of them would reduce that problem.
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