Mosquito Management is Key in Creating Popular Urban Wetlands
A study that shows mosquitoes might benefit from wetland-management tactics aimed at protecting frogs illustrates the complicated ecological dynamics present in urban wetlands. Understanding the habitat requirements and ecological interactions of local mosquito species is critical to balancing such wetlands' risks and benefits.
Stink Bugs Stay Out: Study Measures Gaps Needed for Invasion
If a structure has a gap or entrance large enough for brown marmorated stink bugs to fit through, they will find it. But a new study shows that slits less than 3 millimeters wide and holes less than 7 millimeters wide should successfully exclude the vast majority of the bugs. A related study examines how overwintering stink bugs react to corpses of their fellow bugs remaining from previous winters.
Boric Acid Kills Bed Bugs, But Only When They Eat It
Boric acid dust is a common tool in urban pest management, but a new study shows external exposure is minimally effective against bed bugs. When bed bugs ingest boric acid, though, few survive.
A Day in the Life: Entomology in the Big Apple
For many entomologists, field experiments happen in actual "fields"—croplands or prairies, for instance—but urban ecologist Elsa Youngsteadt, Ph.D., often finds herself in much different spaces, such as the Broadway median in New York City's Upper West Side.