Invasive Insects – Tracking

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ambience: transponder noises

OK, boys, here come the bugs. Get out the ray guns and the dental floss. I’m Jim Metzner and this is the Pulse of the Planet. When ships bring cargo to American ports they often bring unwanted insects along for the ride. Well, to find ways of combating these invasive stowaways, researchers are turning to both high and low tech solutions.

“My study was simply to track individual adults using a technique called harmonic radar.”

David Williams is an entomologist with the US Department of Agriculture who works on containing and eradicating invasive insect species. Well, to study insects like the Asian Long-Horned Beetle, you have to be able to track them.

“This harmonic radar system involves two components. The first is a hand-held transceiver, it’s called. It’s a device that looks kind of like a Buck Roger’s ray gun, if you will. It sends radio waves, and sends them out via an antenna into the environment. The radio waves then bounce back and are recollected by a receiver unit. So the second component of this system is commonly called a tag. It is a small device that can be attached to the insect that reflects the radio waves. When the transceiver is pointed at one of these tags, we get a signal from it. And if we have this tied to something like an insect, then we can use this as a means of following the insect around.”

“The outer surface of the beetle is very shiny and waxy and nothing sticks to it terribly well. What I hit upon ultimately, because the glues didn’t work particularly well, was to mount the transponder on a little collar made of dental floss and tie it around the neck of the beetle.”

Data collected from these collared Asian Long-Horned Beetles will help researchers in their eradication efforts. Pulse of the Planet is made possible by the National Science Foundation. I’m Jim Metzner.

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Invasive Insects - Tracking

Entomologists use both high and low (very low!) tech solutions in their efforts to eradicate invasive insect species.
Air Date:10/17/2006
Scientist:
Transcript:

music
ambience: transponder noises

OK, boys, here come the bugs. Get out the ray guns and the dental floss. I’m Jim Metzner and this is the Pulse of the Planet. When ships bring cargo to American ports they often bring unwanted insects along for the ride. Well, to find ways of combating these invasive stowaways, researchers are turning to both high and low tech solutions.

“My study was simply to track individual adults using a technique called harmonic radar.”

David Williams is an entomologist with the US Department of Agriculture who works on containing and eradicating invasive insect species. Well, to study insects like the Asian Long-Horned Beetle, you have to be able to track them.

“This harmonic radar system involves two components. The first is a hand-held transceiver, it’s called. It’s a device that looks kind of like a Buck Roger’s ray gun, if you will. It sends radio waves, and sends them out via an antenna into the environment. The radio waves then bounce back and are recollected by a receiver unit. So the second component of this system is commonly called a tag. It is a small device that can be attached to the insect that reflects the radio waves. When the transceiver is pointed at one of these tags, we get a signal from it. And if we have this tied to something like an insect, then we can use this as a means of following the insect around.”

“The outer surface of the beetle is very shiny and waxy and nothing sticks to it terribly well. What I hit upon ultimately, because the glues didn’t work particularly well, was to mount the transponder on a little collar made of dental floss and tie it around the neck of the beetle.”

Data collected from these collared Asian Long-Horned Beetles will help researchers in their eradication efforts. Pulse of the Planet is made possible by the National Science Foundation. I’m Jim Metzner.

music