Researchers Find Traces of Over 400 Types of Insects in Single Tea Bag
Newsweek
6/22/2022
© Willibald Lang/Zenger
Researchers have found traces of more than 400 different types of insects in a single tea bag using a new technique they have developed. In this photo, a southern green shield bug, also known as a southern green stink bug, crawls over a leaf, leaving traces of DNA.
Researchers have found traces of more than 400 different types of insects in a single tea bag using a new technique they have developed.
The study's lead researcher, Professor Henrik Krehenwinkel, of the University of Trier in the western German state of Rhineland-Palatinate, said: "We examined commercially available teas and herbs and found DNA from up to 400 different types of insects in a single tea bag."
The biogeographer and his team used the new method they have devised to study a tea bag, looking for traces of insect DNA.
The university said in a statement that Krehenwinkel and his team have "presented a method with which meaningful environmental DNA (environmentalDNA) can be obtained from dried plants and evaluated."
Their results are promising and could be very useful, the statement said, not least because "this group of animals is of enormous importance for the balance of the global ecosystem."
The statement also said: "The possibility of being able to collect eDNA almost anywhere in the environment - in water, in the soil or on plants - has given biomonitoring, the observation and surveillance of animals and plants, enormous progress in recent years.
"So far, insects had to be caught in traps.
"This practice not only has the disadvantage that the animals die, but usually only some of the insects that come into contact with a plant are caught and thus included in the analysis."
Video: Scientists Reverse Aging in Mice (The Independent)
-
Magic mushrooms could replace antidepressants within five years, says new psychedelic research centre
The Independent -
Naps connected to dementia?
The Independent -
COVID Vaccines Saved 20M Lives In 1st Year, Scientists Say
The Independent -
Scientific study claims heart attacks could be predicted in advance with eye test
The Independent -
American Humane offers safety tips for dogs in hot weather
The Independent -
CERN's Latest LHC Experiment Aimed at Explaining the Mystery of Dark Matter
The Independent -
Scientists Look to Uncover the Last Dinosaurs to Roam the Earth Before Asteroid Hit
The Independent -
Panda Celebrates His Birthday In Nanning, Guangxi, China
The Independent -
Mount Everest Base Camp To Be Moved From Melting Glacier
The Independent -
Humpback whale surfaces near boats off Mexico
The Independent -
The Importance of HIV Testing
The Independent -
Preventing and treating mosquito bites
The Independent -
Listening to 'groovy' music from artists such as ABBA and the Bee Gees can boost brain performance
The Independent -
Kangaroos Communicate With Humans In The Same Way As Dogs
The Independent -
Major step towards 'artificial photosynthesis' as device produces clean energy like plants.mp4
The Independent -
Scientists Find First Evidence of Dinosaur ‘Belly Button’
The Independent
-
Magic mushrooms could replace antidepressants within five years, says new psychedelic research centre
The Independent
-
Naps connected to dementia? Frequent naps in older adults could be a sign of dementia. Dr. Desiree Thomas with Kelsey-Seybold Clinic explains.
-
COVID Vaccines Saved 20M Lives In 1st Year, Scientists Say Nearly 20 million lives were saved by COVID-19 vaccines during their first year, but even more deaths could have been prevented if international targets for the shots had been reached, researchers reported Thursday.On Dec. 8, 2020, a retired shop clerk in England received the first shot in what would become a global vaccination campaign. Over the next 12 months, more than 4.3 billion people around the world lined up for the vaccines.The effort, though marred by persisting inequities, prevented deaths on an unimaginable scale, said Oliver Watson of Imperial College London, who led the new modeling study."Catastrophic would be the first word that comes to mind," Watson said of the outcome if vaccines hadn't been available to fight the coronavirus. The findings "quantify just how much worse the pandemic could have been if we did not have these vaccines."The researchers used data from 185 countries to estimate that vaccines prevented 4.2 million COVID-19 deaths in India, 1.9 million in the United States, 1 million in Brazil, 631,000 in France and 507,000 in the United Kingdom.An additional 600,000 deaths would have been prevented if the World Health Organization target of 40% vaccination coverage by the end of 2021 had been met, according to the study published Thursday in the journal Lancet Infectious Diseases.The main finding 19.8 million COVID-19 deaths were prevented is based on estimates of how many more deaths than usual occurred during the time period. Using only reported COVID-19 deaths, the same model yielded 14.4 million deaths averted by vaccines.The London scientists excluded China because of uncertainty around the pandemic's effect on deaths there and its huge population.The study has other limitations. The researchers did not include how the virus might have mutated differently in the absence of vaccines. And they did not factor in how lockdowns or mask wearing might have changed if vaccines weren't available.Another modeling group used a different approach to estimate that 16.3 million COVID-19 deaths were averted by vaccines. That work, by the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation in Seattle, has not been published.In the real world, people wear masks more often when cases are surging, said the institute's Ali Mokdad, and 2021's delta wave without vaccines would have prompted a major policy response."We may disagree on the number as scientists, but we all agree that COVID vaccines saved lots of lives," Mokdad said.The findings underscore both the achievements and the shortcomings of the vaccination campaign, said Adam Finn of Bristol Medical School in England, who like Mokdad was not involved in the study."Although we did pretty well this time we saved millions and millions of lives we could have done better and we should do better in the future," Finn said.Funding came from several groups including the WHO; the UK Medical Research Council; Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance; and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.Additional reporting by The Associated Press.
Krehenwinkel said: "Now we can also prove which insects live inside the plant."
The method he and his team have devised is innovative in that "eDNA is not taken from the surfaces of the plants, as is usually the case, but from crushed, dried plant material. On the plant coat, eDNA is not available for long because it is broken down by UV light or washed away by rain. Another limitation is that in this way mostly insects on the surface of the plant are taken into account."
The method of observing how insects and plants interact is of interest for many other scientific endeavors as well as having "shown that the insect species associated with certain plant species also disappear – and vice versa."
But thanks to this new eDNA method, experts could glean new data regarding what causes this.
The agriculture industry could also benefit from this research, the statement said, because it would help identify pests and insects that can spread by hiding inside plants.
"We are currently working on simplifying the protocol of our procedure so that school classes can work with it. In the long term, this could result in a citizen science project in which citizens conduct research in the field of biodiversity," Krehenwinkel said.
The university added: "Finally, the procedure could also become a case for criminalistics. Reliable statements about the actual geographic origin of plants can be made using eDNA. In this way, customs could determine whether imported types of tea actually come from the specified countries. What is possible with tea also applies to other plants – drugs, for example."
The study was published in the peer-reviewed academic journal Biology Letters, which is published by the Royal Society in the U.K.
It was published June 15 under the title "The bug in a teacup—monitoring arthropod–plant associations with environmental DNA from dried plant material," and was authored by Henrik Krehenwinkel, Sven Weber, Sven Kuenzel and Susan R. Kennedy.
This story was provided to Newsweek by Zenger News.
Newsweek
