Where ticks usually live in nature: typical habitats. Rubric “Natural enemies of pests” Why ticks exist
To the question Encephalitic tick? natural enemies ticks? Where are they most common? Why there? given by the author I-beam the best answer is Ticks are one of the most diverse and ancient groups of arthropods on Earth. Typically, mites feed on plant debris, soil fungi, or other small arthropods. There are more than 40,000 species of ticks in the world fauna, however, many groups are still poorly understood, and dozens of new species are described annually by scientists. Some mites have adapted to feeding on the blood of animals and have become parasites. Among the parasites, the most famous ixodid ticks (Ixodoidea). This group has only 680 species that live on all continents, including Antarctica. Ixodid ticks carry human pathogens with natural focality: tick-borne encephalitis [the main vectors are the taiga tick Ixodes persulcatus and I. ricinus], tick-borne borreliosis (Lyme disease), typhus, relapsing tick-borne typhus, hemorrhagic fever and Q fever, tularemia, ehrlichiosis and many others. A number of measures are taken to protect against the bites of Ixodes ticks.
Despite a significant number of species of ixodid ticks, only two species are of real epidemiological significance: Ixodes Persulcatus (taiga tick) in the Asian and in a number of areas of the European part, Ixodes Ricinus (European forest tick) in the European part. In the future, we will talk about these types of ticks.
The taiga and European forest ticks are giants compared to their "peaceful" counterparts, its body is covered with a powerful shell and equipped with four pairs of legs. In females, the integument of the rear part is able to greatly stretch, which allows them to absorb large amounts of blood, hundreds of times more than a hungry tick weighs. Males are slightly smaller than females and only suck on a short time(less than an hour). To distinguish between a female and a male is very simple - you need to remember how they look.
In the surrounding world, ticks are guided mainly by touch and smell; ticks do not have eyes. But the sense of smell of ticks is very acute: studies have shown that ticks are able to smell an animal or a person at a distance of about 10 meters.
Tick habitats. Ticks that transmit encephalitis are distributed almost throughout the southern part of the Eurasian forest zone. Which places are most at risk for ticks? Ticks are moisture-loving, and therefore their number is greatest in well-moistened places. Ticks prefer moderately shaded and moist deciduous and mixed forests with dense herbage and undergrowth. There are many ticks along the bottom of dens and forest ravines, as well as along forest edges, in thickets of willows along the banks of forest streams, etc.
connected by one chain. N.M. Zhirmunskaya
In this case, we mean not a real iron chain, but the so-called food chain. Although this chain is invisible, its iron grip inexorably guides many biological processes and allows you to maintain the balance in nature.
Equilibrium is the main law of nature. But we just violate it when we plant gardens and vegetable gardens and forget that with all our technical and chemical achievements, we cannot escape from nature, which means that, whether you like it or not, you must comply with its laws.
Consider one of the food chains that exists in our garden. It consists of the following links:
The first is plants that serve as food for herbivorous insects (phytophages);
The third is entomophages, which feed on phytophages and themselves serve as food for birds, amphibians, etc.
In this chain, phytophages are in the most advantageous position, the very ones that, in our view, are united by one name - pests.
Their food is always available in abundance. Since the amount of food is unlimited, they could also reproduce indefinitely, but this does not always happen, since, in addition to food, the ability to reproduce depends on many other conditions, including climatic, space, and also on the presence of natural enemies. But since these conditions are constantly changing, the number of phytophagous pests varies from season to season. We see this in our garden. One year we breathe a sigh of relief: no aphids, no weevils. Another year if autumn and winter add up favorable conditions for laying eggs and overwintering these and other small creatures like them, then in the spring we see with horror our fruit trees and berry bushes, covered with hordes of pests.
Entomophages are not in the best position either. True, our joys turn into grief for them, and vice versa. When there are few pests, they have nothing to feed their young, and then their numbers are greatly reduced. When there are a lot of pests, they are created for them excellent conditions for breeding and their population is increasing.
At first glance, everything looks quite safe: the mass reproduction of pests is accompanied by the mass reproduction of entomophages. The second eat the first and bring their number to an acceptable level.
Everything would be so if it were not for a certain delay in the reproduction of entomophages in comparison with the reproduction of pests. It is late / exactly at the time it takes for the larvae and adult insects to develop from the laid eggs, and this is usually 2-3 weeks.
In early spring, in April, we can observe the first stage of confrontation between predators and their prey. As soon as the sun begins to warm, the first predators wake up - spiders and bedbugs.
Spider and prey
Spiders and Spiderlings different sizes live both in the ground and on the branches of shrubs. They prey mainly on adult insects that have not yet left the stage of winter dormancy.
In April, predatory anthocoris bugs awaken, which move to apple trees and begin to suck out the contents of wintering eggs of red and brown fruit mites, aphids, suckers and leafworms.
Both adult bugs and their larvae are equally voracious. In the spring, they eat the eggs of the pests mentioned above.
An adult bug can destroy a thousand individuals of a red apple mite in one day. At the same time, without harming either plants, or humans, or the same predators as himself.
During the day, the larvae of the predatory bug anthocoris destroy up to 300 eggs or up to 250 larvae of the currant gall midge, and in an hour - 50 - 60 spider mites.
When adults emerge from eggs in summer, they also eat adults. Bed bugs do not miss aphids, or suckers, or leafworms, but fruit mites and especially their eggs remain their favorite food.
At first, there is not much of it and it does not have a strong damaging effect on the shoots, but aphids have an unlimited ability to reproduce. Over the summer, they give 11-13 generations and, if nothing interferes, their number grows like an avalanche. Aphids breed especially intensively in the second half of summer after June 24, when the composition of plant sap changes (the content of carbohydrates increases in it, and this stimulates the feeding and reproduction of aphids). And they would multiply indefinitely if not for their many natural enemies.
Several species of predatory spiders and 21 species of predatory insects feed on aphids, including ladybugs, lacewings, predatory bugs, syrphid flies, and predatory gall midges. The faster the aphids reproduce, the more active the predators that feed on them.
Syrphid flies lay their eggs directly in the colony of aphids, and the larvae of flies that degenerate from eggs eat aphids from late May to August.
In June-August, aphids are eaten by the larvae of the silver fly. The joint efforts of predators different types the number of aphids in the second half of summer, as a rule, decreases to an acceptable level.
As a result, a trichogram comes out of the egg instead of the codling moth. They learned how to breed Trichogramma artificially, and if it is released in the garden early in spring, then damage to apples by codling moths can be significantly reduced.
Others lay their eggs in the body of caterpillars or larvae. So do most ichneumonid riders, tahini flies.
Then she lays an egg on the caterpillar, closes up the entrance to the mink with a pebble and flies away with a calm soul. After hatching from the egg, the larva will find a sufficient supply of food.
Ground beetles are active predators, everything that lives on the surface and shallow under the soil surface becomes their prey. AT middle lane Several hundred species of ground beetles have been discovered in Russia, but only five species are the most common and numerous.
Ground beetles are rather large beetles with rigid elytra, which, depending on the species, have a color from blue-black to copper-red. Ground beetles have such properties that make them very effective entomophages - gluttony, aggressiveness, high fertility, abundance and long life expectancy.
Their victims are eggs, larvae and adults of the most various kinds insects, but it is very important for us that the ground beetle eats the larvae of the Colorado potato beetle, which even birds refuse because of their disgusting taste.
The Colorado potato beetle produces two generations during the summer. Larvae of the most harmful first generation at the beginning of summer are not very accessible to ground beetles, as they sit high on potato bushes, and ground beetles run mainly on the ground. But after heavy rain, wind or hilling, many larvae fall to the ground and become victims of a predator. Ground beetles destroy from 30 to 70% of the larvae of the first generation.
The second generation of Colorado potato beetle larvae develops in the second half of summer, when potato tops grow and fall to the ground. At the same time, the period of the greatest activity of ground beetles begins. One ground beetle can eat an average of 26 Colorado beetle larvae per day.
In total, ground beetles eat from 60 to 100% of the eggs and larvae of the second generation of the Colorado potato beetle.
Accordingly, the number of the beetle that leaves for the winter and attacks the potato fields in the spring of the next year decreases.
In the fight against the Colorado potato beetle, ladybugs, lacewings and predatory bugs help.
In addition, it turned out that this bug can be bred in artificial conditions and in right time release into potato fields. But best of all, he proved himself on eggplant.
Slugs and flies are the favorite food of lizards.
It is not so difficult to choose a place on the garden plot, the lizards will be comfortable eating. It should not be sunny, but not without sunlight area, wet. A few stones, an old stump will help the lizard brought from the forest to take root with you.
The toad has neither sharp teeth nor wings to chase insects like a bat.
And yet, she is one of the gardener's best friends. The toad hunts only at night. And this is the favorite time of slugs.
Over the summer, 100 worms on one square meter soils lay kilometers of passages, making it loose, water and breathable.
On land where there are a lot of worms, and this is determined by holes in the soil surface, you can grow everything without fertilizing.
Predatory entomophagous insects contribute greatly to the deterrence of reproduction. harmful insects. The value of this contribution varies greatly depending on certain conditions. Among these conditions, not the last place is occupied by the availability of food, just something that the gardener has the opportunity to influence in a certain way and thereby contribute to an increase in the number of entomophages. Here we again for the umpteenth time mention hedges.
Always lives in the hedgerows a large number of a variety of insects: both harmful and beneficial. There they are in balance. The latter eat the former and thus do not allow them to multiply uncontrollably, but at the same time they never completely destroy them, thus maintaining their food and, accordingly, their numbers at a sufficiently high level.
If mass reproduction of pests suddenly begins in the garden, the entomophages will be ready to move to cultivated plants and help the gardener cope with this disaster. In this case, the sequence of events that is typical for a garden without hedges is violated:
Without top dressing, they live 2-3 days, and with top dressing, 9-15. This significantly increases the time during which the riders infect the pest caterpillars.
It is known that beneficial insects prefer small flowers of plants from the family Umbelliferae, Compositae and Cruciferae. AT the best option through successive sowings, a permanent conveyor of nectar-bearing plants should be organized, supplying entomophages with food from spring to autumn.
anise flowers
Predatory wasps and flies are attracted by flat open flowers of daisies, chamomile, as well as mint, savory.
daisies
Savory garden Argonaut
It is important to provide predatory hoverflies with early flowering plants.
Hoverflies, or Flower Flies (Syrphids)
When in the spring they wake up from hibernation, they need food at the same time. If they do not find the necessary food at this time, their larvae, active aphid eaters, will appear too late, only in August.
In addition to feeding, beneficial insects require sun-protected, shady, moist habitats and plants suitable for oviposition.
Spiders and ground beetles prefer to live and lay their eggs in tall grass under hedge bushes, from where they make hunting raids on garden beds at night.
Ground beetles overwinter in the soil. Scientists have found that their number can be increased by 1.5 times if they create favorable conditions for overwintering, loosening and preparing the ridges for planting potatoes in the fall.
For oviposition, lacewings choose thickets of ferns and evergreen shrubs. In the garden, it is desirable to keep a certain amount of wild flowering plants, such as tansy, chamomile, yarrow, on which he likes to lay eggs ladybug.
Tansy
Daisies
yarrow
Another technique is hanging bundles of straw or reeds in places sheltered from the rain. This is convenient places for
laying eggs of many beneficial insects.
For catchers of aphids and codling moths - earwigs on apple trees are hung upside down small flower pots stuffed with dry grass and all sorts of rubbish.
Earwig
There the earwig hides during the day. because it leads a nocturnal lifestyle. She also lays her eggs there.
Consider another type of beneficial insects - pollinators. hedges with flowering bushes is one way to attract them.
Another way is to create living quarters for wild bees. For this purpose, an old log with large quantity holes drilled in it. It is reinforced in vertical position and covered with a rain cap.
After all of the above, it is hardly worth convincing gardeners to abandon the use of pesticides. Pesticides destroy the living chain and create all the conditions for the uncontrolled reproduction of pests.
First of all, beneficial insects die - predators that live openly and do not hide, like pests in various secluded places: under bark or lumps of soil. By using pesticides, you are captured by them, as you destroy your allies and are left with the problem of protecting your garden one on one.
Surprising is the fact that many varieties of ticks are absolutely unpretentious to living conditions. They can settle almost everywhere, even in fresh and marine waters.
What diseases are spread by ticks?
The Sanita-S company has been fighting ticks for many years. We studied not only the behavior of these insects, but also a wide range of those infectious diseases that they can provoke:
1. Encephalitis. This is usually a neuroinfection that occurs with very serious symptoms, including the occurrence of deafness, paralysis of the limbs, convulsions, and respiratory failure. If a case of a bite encephalitis tick diagnosed late, it can be fatal. The disease occurs in three main forms: febrile, meningeal, focal. The highest risk of infection is in the spring-summer period, when insect activity is quite high. It is during this period that the professional fight against ticks should be carried out at a particularly active pace.
2. Northern piroplasmosis. The disease proceeds mildly, with virtually no pronounced symptoms, but this is typical only for those people who have a properly functioning immune system. Fatalities are also not uncommon, and they are usually preceded by fever, abdominal pain, and yellowing of the skin. The main treatment is antibiotic therapy.
3. Hemorrhagic fever. It's spicy viral disease, the occurrence of which is provoked blood-sucking mites. The infection enters the body through insect bites or through wounds on the skin. During the illness, intestinal bleeding, lesions nervous system, improper functioning of the kidneys, headaches and muscle pain. Immunoglobulins are usually used for treatment.
In fact, this is just the tip of the iceberg ... There are many more diseases caused by tick bites or interaction with these insects. Fortunately, on the territory of Russia and in particular the Moscow region, only some of them are common, but this does not mean at all that the fight against ticks is not relevant.
Company specialists "Sanita-S" tick control will be carried out using the most effective chemical and other preparations. We guarantee that after processing land plot or a particular room, dangerous insects will not return anytime soon. But in order to protect yourself from ticks as reliably as possible, you need to periodically take preventive actions ( wet cleaning, the fight against cluttering the territory, mowing grass and weeds, timely collection of fallen leaves and its removal from the territory of the site).
Fight against harmful insects attacking various plants, includes not only the use of insecticides and. One of the oldest ways to destroy pests was invented by Nature itself. This is a biological method using natural enemies or entomophages.
This method has a number of advantages over all others. The use of insecticides not only harms people, but also environment, in contrast to the biological method. In addition, attracting entomophages is much cheaper.
Groups of entomophages
There are several groups of natural enemies. They act in different ways, not only destroying mechanically, but also being introduced into the body, damaging it from the inside.
pathogenic microorganisms
These include bacteria, fungi and viruses. Having settled in the body of a pest, they cause numerous pathological processes, which ultimately lead first to the weakening of the insect, and then to death.
A series of preparations containing such microorganisms is produced. That's what they're called microbiological. These include Lepidocid, Bitoxibacillin, Dendrobacillin. The live bacteria that make up the composition are used against many Lepidoptera (butterflies) and their larvae, Colorado beetles, herbivorous mites, leafworms, sawflies and other pests.
Predatory insects
To effectively deal with plant pests, you need a fairly large number of beneficial insects. To increase their number, it is recommended not to use in the garden. chemicals, which do not have selective activity and destroy everyone in a row. The exception is the biological preparations Iskra-bio and.
Another significant group of entomophages, very effectively destroying harmful insects. By attracting them to your site, you provide enough powerful protection their plants, as voracious birds are able to get rid of an entire population of pests.
You can increase the number of visiting birds with the help of baits. For example, tits are very fond of fat, so it’s enough to hang strips of unsalted product on fruit trees.
insectivorous animals
They are no less voracious and actively destroy pests. Some eat them whole, while others suck out internal fluids. The result is always the same - the death of harmful insects.
The greatest benefit is brought by various spiders. They hang a web, which comes across a lot of harmful insects. And it's not just flies.
Many butterflies, moths and their larvae become food for spiders.
Who helps in pest control
Among the varieties of this suborder of insects there are those that live on water surface. We often see them while relaxing by the water, not even realizing that we have a bug
Predatory and gluttonous mite, intensively used to combat garden and garden pests. Phytoseiulus acts in natural and artificially created plant associations as a natural regulator of the number of phytophages.
Stories about army ants, which travel in giant columns, devouring all living things in their path, everyone had to hear. What are these insects and is the danger that they carry really so great?
Bullet ant is a big one predatory insect, common in tropical forests South and Central America. The pain from an ant sting is equal in intensity to the pain from bullet wound, but it does not threaten a person's life, except for cases with allergies
AT last years the study of biological diversity sharply intensified. The assessment of bioresources also affected hover flies, which not only actively pollinate various plants, but also significantly reduce the number of pests at a certain stage of development.
These insects are often confused by inexperienced gardeners and gardeners with pests. Meanwhile, the entomophages are playing important role in reducing the population of caterpillars, aphids and psyllids
Chalcides, belonging to the order of ichneumons, play an important role in protecting crops from various pests - aphids, caterpillars and scale insects.
Dragonflies are one of the most ancient insects. They have excellent eyesight and are virtuoso hunters. Dragonflies breed in water, where the adult fertilized female lays her eggs. Dragonfly larvae are characterized by poor survival, since many aquatic life don't hesitate to enjoy them. Dragonflies exterminate insects harmful to humans
The red beetle with black dots on the curved elytra, popularly known as the sun or ladybug, is our main helper in preserving the crop - a natural enemy. different kind aphids that harm gardens, berries and orchards
Easily recognizable by their conspicuous orange coloration, two-spotted ladybugs are known around the world as uncompromising fighters with garden pests, such as aphids and mites, but the secrets of their lives are not known to everyone
Are you wondering what kind of insect this is, which has a strange name - the bombardier beetle? Then read this article!
The most active representatives of entomophages
Ladybug (coccinellida)
The most effective enemy of any species of aphids. Moreover, it is not the adult beetle that causes the greatest damage, but its larva. If an adult individual destroys up to 50 aphids per day, then the larva is over 500.
Great fecundity is another plus of this bright cute bug. One female lays up to 300 eggs per season. In addition to aphids, it preys on whiteflies, mealybugs and larvae of the Colorado potato beetle.
Fast predatory beetles, actively feed in the evening and at night. They are distinguished by an oblong body of dark colors with a metallic sheen. It is one of the most useful predators in the fight against plant pests.
One adult beetle can eat up to 350 caterpillars in a summer. Having found the victim, he releases a poisonous liquid on it, which quickly dissolves the organs and tissues of the insect. The beetle eats the resulting thin homogeneous mass. The larva is even more voracious and destroys much more pests.
A spectacularly colored flying predator, often pretending to be something else, such as a wasp. Disguise is needed to escape from enemies. An adult fly feeds on flower nectar, and its larva brings benefits.
She eats spider mites, aphids and eggs of many insects. While the larval stage lasts, the individual eats up to 2000 pests. Flies can be attracted by planting hogweed, carrots, dill, and some other umbellifers.
lacewing
An insect with a long bright green body. Quite prolific, some species can bring up to 1500 eggs per season. The larvae are very voracious and gladly destroy the eggs of pests, aphids and herbivorous small mites. They are often used to kill insects not only on garden plots but also in greenhouses.
After emerging from the eggs, the riders begin to feed internal organs victims leading to death.
Birds 
For the destruction of pests, tits, swifts, flycatchers, pikas, starlings, wagtails, nuthatches, redstarts should be attracted to the sites. All of them feed on numerous caterpillars, beetle larvae and adults, bringing very tangible benefits in the fight against harmful insects.
Birds are well attracted to hedges of branching shrubs such as acacia, wild rose, gooseberry. You can arrange feeders and bird houses (birdhouses and titmouses).
Why do we need ticks in nature?
Ticks help natural selection and play an equally important role in the evolutionary process. Who can survive after a tick bite is considered a strong individual and gains some immunity and knowledge. The fittest survives, and ticks help to identify the fittest.
Ticks in nature are an integral part food chain. Ants like them very much and they eagerly eat them. Ixodid ticks serve as a delicacy for such a family of beetles as ground beetles.
So it’s impossible to say that ticks only suck blood and spread diseases. They are eaten, they receive nutrients other animals.
And the biologist and Andryukha and I think that ticks are not needed for anything, appendicitis is also not particularly needed. Here are ticks, whether they exist or not - this is just the imperfection of nature. By the way, I'm a doctor.
In nature, everything exists for a reason, but for a purpose.
Here are the mites, which live mainly on animals, feed on dead parts of the skin. It turns out that they thus clean the skin.
Well, I think that ticks are needed in order to destroy already sick animals. This is natural selection. Like on the whole planet, a hare eats grass, a wolf eats a hare, well, something like that. Well, I still have a version. There is a macro and micro world. Ticks, when bitten, inject microbes into the blood, the body of that animal begins to secrete antibodies that begin to kill these microbes. Or maybe even a new organism appears in the environment. They interbreed and get a new organism inside one big one. Although I am not a biologist, I will not say.
Most likely, there is a scientific explanation for any fact, but in nature nothing happens just like that. If ticks exist, then they are needed for something. As a complacency, I believe that their disappearance may give rise to an invasion of other, more dangerous creatures, maybe the existence of ticks prevents something more terrible.
If approached from a scientific, evolutionary point of view - then there is nothing. It's just that this kind of organisms is sufficiently adapted to survive, therefore, once accidentally formed from some other, it continues to exist to this day.
And if you approach with a religious one, then there may be different variants mite uses:
1 For example, to punish some sinner or by striking him, to prevent the atrocities he is plotting.
2 As soon as possible send to paradise the righteous man who suffers unjustly on Earth.
3 To slay one animal so that several others can feed on its body.