CABI Blogs: hand picked... and carefully sorted

Four new bee species described in Australia - many more remain unidentified

By Miroslav Djuric, DVM, CAB International, Wallingford, UK.

Bee specialists from South Australia have described four new native bees. Three of these bee species have been described as  having narrow faces and very long mouths, allowing them to feed on slender flowers found on the emu bush, a hardy native of the Australian desert environment, and to collect the nectar through a narrow constriction at the base of the emu bush flowers. Based on the authors' description, the way these bees have adapted to feed on emu bush flowers is an excellent example of evolution. The fourth species belongs to a different group and has a more commonly observed round-shaped head.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The four new species belong to the genus Euhesma. Their description is based on evaluation of DNA ‘barcoding’ and morphological comparison of the bees with museum specimens.

How effective are current measures for protecting horses from African Horse Sickness?

By Miroslav Djuric, DVM, CAB International, Wallingford, UK.

African horse sickness is a serious and often fatal disease of horses, mules and donkeys caused by African horse sickness virus (AHSV), of the genus Orbivirus in the family Reoviridae. It can also affect zebras, camels and dogs, but not humans. Zebras and donkeys rarely develop serious disease.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The virus is spread by infected insects (mosquitoes and biting midges) and causes fever, heart and respiratory problems in affected animals.  Death is common and can occur suddenly.

Veterinary visits to become mandatory in European farming

By Miroslav Djuric, DVM, CAB International, Wallingford, UK

The European Agriculture Council has formally approved a draft law on animal diseases that are transmissible among animals and potentially to humans (zoonoses).

The provisions in the law on farm animal health visits stipulate that professional animal owners are to receive regular animal health visits from a veterinarian for disease prevention, detection and biosecurity. This new piece of legislation aims to merge and update existing scattered directives and regulations into a single and coherent law.

It is announced as an important step forward, since visits by vets are the cornerstone of the ‘prevention is better than cure’ strategy and indispensable for the prevention and early detection of known and emerging transmissible diseases. The role of the veterinarian in achieving this is defined and highlighted. The veterinary profession also has an active part to play in raising awareness of animal health and of One Health, or the interaction between animal health, animal welfare and public health.

Five more bird species that can spread Lyme disease identified in USA

By Miroslav Djuric, DVM, CAB International, Wallingford, UK.

Lyme disease or Lyme borreliosis is the most prevalent arthropod-borne disease of animals and humans in the temperate regions of the northern hemisphere¹. Risk of infection in humans is primarily associated with occupation (e.g. forestry work) or outdoor recreational activities.

Recent surveys show that the overall prevalence of Lyme disease may be stabilizing, but its geographical distribution is increasing. There are foci of Lyme borreliosis in forested areas of Asia, north-western, central and eastern Europe, and the USA. According to the CDC, Lyme disease is the most commonly reported vector borne disease in the United States. It is most commonly diagnosed in the northeast and upper Midwest, especially Wisconsin and Minnesota. However, Lyme disease is spreading geographically, especially into Virginia and the southeastern United States. The CDC estimates that about 300,000 Americans are diagnosed with Lyme disease each year, afflicting sufferers with flu-like symptoms. If not treated with antibiotics, the infection can cause inflammation of the joints and it can affect the heart and nervous system.

COP21: Major climate deal agreed in Paris

 

A landmark agreement to limit global temperature rises to below 2 °C has been announced

After two intensive weeks of debate the 21^st Conference of the Parties (COP21) drew to a close on 12^th December with a new climate deal on the table. The ambitious global agreement commits the 195 participating parties to hold the increase in the global average temperature to well below 2 °C above pre-industrial levels, and to pursue efforts to limit the temperature increase to 1.5 °C. All but the smallest poorest countries are asked to play their part to ensure that greenhouse gas emissions peak and then begin declining as soon as possible to help achieve the long term temperature goal.

Tackling climate change and agriculture at COP21 - a look at the landscape approach

By Dr Trevor Nicholls, CEO, CABI

At COP21 last week, the world’s leaders agreed on a way forward to manage climate change. Limiting global warming to less than two percent was undoubtedly a landmark decision and, for the first time, there was unanimous recognition that humans impact the climate and that humans must do something about it.

I was honoured to deliver an address to the UNFCCC on CABI’s work in agriculture and the environment, specifically highlighting our knowledge and science-based initiatives like Plantwise that help smallholder farmers living in rural communities grow more and lose less of their produce, and embrace climate smart agricultural processes.

What is a sustainable diet? - a vision from the FENS conference

Climate change may be on everyone’s lips, but we are only just beginning to see how our diets might need to change to help prevent it and deal with the challenges of a growing population. I heard more about the question of sustainable diets at a series of sessions at the FENS conference on nutrition last month that I attended in my capacity as nutrition subject specialist for Global Health database.  Dr Karl von Koerber of the Sustainable Nutrition Working Group in Munich, Germany gave us the best view of what might constitute sustainable diet in Europe. It looks more like this:

than this:

 

Farming tropical insects to feed the world in 2050

 
  Deep-fried locust kebabs.CC BY 2.0

Many non-western cultures already eat insects [entomophagy]: in Thailand  & China its a common streetfood as you can see in the picture, but its an unusual  and frankly unheard of cuisine in the UK.  AS you will see though, CABI staff have an interest in entomophagy AND we have blogged about global entomophagy before [Roasted grasshopper with a sprinkling of termites].

On 18^th November 2015, studio guests, and listeners, of BBC Radio 4 - Midweek were treated to the experience of eating insects as food!  Dr Sarah Beynon, an entomologist was a guest: she is on a mission to both educate the UK public on the importance of insects (including wasps and spiders) and to provide sustainable food by farming tropical insects. 

She had brought in samples of insect protein  which is on the menu at her café, The Grub Kitchen. The café  is the latest venture for her Bugfarm in Wales, which functions as  a research & education centre as well as providing dungbeetles for UK farmers to convert dung into compost! 

Guests sounded wary but chef Michel Roux Jnr pronounced the chocolate cookie made with ground cricket flour, sugar and chocolate, as “very nice” and described it as both chocolatey and having a novel “meaty” taste.  Another description was “marmity”: hardly surprising considering marmite was developed from yeast as an alternative to meat extract. 

Weight for weight, we were told, cricket flour is higher in protein than beef. 

Other delicacies available at the café include grasshoppers (taste like tea), mealworm hummus, and gourmet bug burgers containing mealworms, crickets and grasshoppers. By customer request coming soon will be burgers containing crunchy intact mealworms!

Food security for 2050: using insect protein will take the pressure off agricultural land

“WE need to look at new ways of producing food and we think this [tropical insect farming] is one of the ways of doing it” declared Dr. Beynon.