Flaschcards Midterm 1

Abundance = # of individuals Diversity = # of species

less competition and ready to exploit new environments

protection from physical damage and protection against dessication

finding food, mates, and escaping from predators. As well as better for e/immigration

need very little food and resources, can be in many different microhabitats, and can find different nesting places

most diverse insect orders, less competition for food or habitat due to differing sizes.

Helps with increasing the chances of offspring survivability, and short gen. times allow for populations to grow faster

• Pollination: (insects pollinate and bees are the most important pollinators) • Food: are vital for the life of the ecosystem, are easy prey for many other organisms and insects. • Nutrient cycling: increase speed of decomp of OM, aerate soils, and add OM • Maggot therapy • Genetics: knowledge about mutations and inheritence • Commercial products

when they come into direct conflict with humans over crops, garden flowers, or forest trees/wildlife reserves.

herbivorous and phytophagous

monophagous: specialists, feed on only one species of plant oligophagous: feed on various plants in a family Polyphagous: generalists, feed on many different plants

Boll Weevil, Colorado potato beetle, Mediterranean fruit fly, desert locust

spongy moth, emerald ash borer, asian longhorned beetle

they have only one host (cotton), insecticides were heavily used against them and mass trapping using pheromone traps.

Potato pests feed on Solanaceae family and resistant to many insecticides, Bt control and crop rotation used to avoid them.

Are very generalist, and are heavily controlled with the sterile insect technique (male sterile flies are released into the wild to control populations and reduce female offspring, which hurts the plants).

In Africa and the Southwest Asia, there can be billions in a swarm, most important insect pest (devastating)

introduced from Europe, and feed on about 300 species of trees (mainly in the caterpillar stage).

Native to Asia, now in quebec and USA. Has one host, the ash trees. The larva go into the wood and are hard to detect.

Native to asia, larvae bore into the wood, found in Canada, attack many tree species.

biological vectors: mostly blood feeders to transmit diseases mechanical vectors: carry pathogen on body or mouthparts

head (6 segments) thorax (3 segments) and abdomen (11 segments)

tagmosis

No, they have an open circulatory system