Aroostook Republican reports on potato beetle cannibalism
Andrei Alyokhin, director of the School of Biology and Ecology, spoke with the Aroostook Republican about his research results involving Colorado potato cannibalism. He found that in a laboratory, Colorado potato beetles facing starvation and crowding ate beetle eggs and young beetles and injured beetles and other adults. Alyokhin said while it’s a laboratory study and not suggestive of a “silver bullet” solution, it is an important finding. “It does show that if we create an unfavorable environment for beetles, for instance by crop rotation, they’ll have nothing to eat when they awake from hibernation. If we create those kinds of unfavorable conditions, they may start eating each other.” Potato News Today and Phys.org ran the UMaine media release about the findings.