Spring is Springing!

Our weather this month in Oklahoma has been funky, to say the least. In this state we're pretty used to huge swings of temperature in short period of time depending on which winds are strongest (warm from the south, cold from the north). They are so strong that, during the months of March-May, we have our annual Tornado season. We haven't had any tornadoes yet, but we did have a pretty nasty hail storm this past weekend. I won't go too far into weather patterns (we have a whole meteorology department here at OU for that, as well as the National Weather Service), or talk too much about global warming (its a fact...whether you believe it or not is up to you), but the fact of the matter is we've hit our Oklahoma spring, and hit it hard.
     The trees have started to bud-out, and the oakes have put out their pollen panicles...the start of flowers and leaves and plant growth for spring. This means that soon all the insects will also be out in full-swing, since many depend on the plants and trees for the first doses of nutrition to power the first generations of insects. This is especially true for groups of insects like aphids, and my study group of insects, the plant bugs (Miridae). Both depend on new-growth leaves and tissues to get the sugary sap, and nutritious plant-cells to grow and develop, so the temperatures and day light start triggering the overwintering eggs of these insects to hatch. Soon it will be a few weeks of boom or bust feeding, growing, dispersing, laying eggs, and then repeating.

Pine aphids. From Landscape IPM Advisory website at Utah State

      I took one of my volunteers out into the field behind the museum to show him the methods of collecting insects and what to expect for insects this time of year, and one of the most prominent bugs already out are massive swarms of aphids feeding on the pine trees. Aphids are interesting because they are one of the insect groups that have live-births (viviparity), and also have cloning (parthenogenesis). Especially in the spring, to take advantage of the plant growth and hopefully not have populations completely eaten by predators, there is pressure to produce as many aphids as possible and as quickly as possible. So, rather than wait around for a mate for sexual reproduction, many aphids will just clone copies of themselves in mass, producing huge populations of identical individuals. Later in the season aphids will switch to sexual reproduction and produce males and females, but right now on the pines its swarms of females.

Aphid reproduction. Image from San Fransisco State University Lab website.

         So, if you are walking around campus lately, take a look at the insects that are also coming out at the same time. I bet you'll see a few aphids, and soon the tide will start of all kinds of really neat and interesting insects starting their yearly cycle of life. Have a good week!