This document discusses animal and plant interactions and their effects on agriculture and food processing. It covers examples of mutualistic interactions like pollination that benefit agriculture as well as antagonistic interactions like pests that harm agriculture. Pollination, which is facilitated by animals transferring pollen between plants, is described as essential for the reproduction of most crop plants and fruits. The value of pollination services, particularly from honeybees, is estimated to be in the billions of dollars annually for countries' agricultural sectors. Biological control using natural enemies is presented as an alternative to chemical pesticides for managing agricultural pests, though it also carries risks if agents become invasive themselves. Case studies on pollination valuation from China and India are briefly

1. APPLICATION ANIMAL AND PLANT
INTERACTION IN FOOD PROCESSING
AND AGRICULTURE STORAGE

2. CONTENT
• ANIMAL AND PLANT MUTUALISM INTERACTION EFFECT TO AGRICULTURE
• Pollination and agriculture
• Natural enemies, Biological Control and agriculture
• ANIMAL AND PLANT ANTAGONISM INTERACTION EFFECT TO
AGRICULTURE
• Pest and Agriculture
•
• STUDY CASE (you can search by yourself)
• VIDEO (you can search by yourself)

3. Pollination and Agriculture
Pollinators provide an essential ecosystem
service to both natural and agricultural
ecosystems. Growing evidences suggests that
healthy pollination services are threatened in
many parts of the world. Pollinators ensure
reproduction, fruit set development and
dispersal in the vast majority plants, both in
agro-ecosystems and natural ecosystems

4. Pollination
• Process of plant reproduction: male pollen meets female
sex cells
• In many plants, animals transfer pollen to pollinate female
plants, in mutualistic interaction to obtain nectar or pollen.
Honeybee pollinating apple
blossom

5. Coevolution
• Coevolution – interactions between two
different species as selective forces on each
other, resulting in adaptations that increase
their interdependency.
• Animal-flowering plant interaction is a classic
example of coevolution:
• 1. Plants evolve elaborate methods to attract
animal pollinators
• 2. Animals evolved specialized body parts and
behaviors that aid plant pollination

6. Animal pollinators: Bees
• Bees – are the most important group of flower
pollinators
• They live on the nectar and feed
larvae, also eat the pollen.
• Bees are guided by sight and
smell
• See yellow and blue colors,
also ultraviolet light (not red)
• Flowers have
“honey guides”
and bee landing
platforms..

7. Butterflies and moths
• Also guided by sight and smell
• Butterflies can see red and orange
flowers
• Usually shaped as a long tube
because of insect’s
proboscis – to get nectar
• Moth-pollinated flowers
are usually white or pale,
with sweet, strong odor –
for night pollination.

8. Flies and beetles
• Flies like flowers that smell
like dung or rotten meat.
• Lay their eggs there, but larvae
die due to lack of food
• Beetles pollinate flowers
that are dull in color, but
have very strong odor

9. Birds
• Birds have a good sense
of color, they like yellow or
red flowers…
• But birds do not have a good
sense of smell, so bird-pollinated
flowers usually have little odor.
• Flowers provide fluid nectar in
greater quantities than insects
• Hummingbird-pollinated flowers
usually have long, tubular corolla
• Pollen is large and sticky

10. Mammals: bats and mice
• Bats pollinate at night,
so flowers are white
• Mouse-pollinated flowers
are usually inconspicuous,
they open at night

11. Why do animals pollinate plants?
• They get a REWARD: food! In
exchange for moving their pollen
to another flower
• Nectar – a sugary solution produced
in special flower glands called nectaries
• Nectar concentration matches energy requirements of the
pollinator: bird- and bee-pollinated flowers have different
sugar conc.
• Pollen – is high in protein, some bees and beetles eat it.
• Flowers can produce two kinds of pollen: a normal and a
sterile, but tasty, kind, for the insect.

12. Value of pollination
• Many species provide pollination services - primarily bees, but also butterflies,
moths, bats, birds, etc.
• Many important food crops rely on animal pollination, including fruits and
vegetables and fodder. The decline of pollinator populations impacts negatively on
crop production (+ food security)
Three types of Values
• as an intrinsic ecosystem service
– conservation/maintenance of surrounding natural ecosystems (habitat)
– specific plant/pollinator relationships
• in real terms - from increased agricultural yield
– improved quality and quantity (fruit set, seeds)
• in real terms, as “agricultural input”
– value against potential loss of pollination service
– costs of hand pollination (China) and hive rental (India)

13. Value of honeybee pollination
Estimates show that the benefit of using honeybees for enhancing crops yields
through cross pollination is much higher than their role as produces of honey
and beeswax (Partap, 2002).
Estimated value of honeybee pollination (Apis mellifera) to crop production:
• US agriculture: US$ 14.6 billion (Morse & Calderone 2000).
• Canadian agriculture: CDN 1.2 billion (Winston & Scott 1984)
• EEC agriculture: US$ 3 billion (Williams, 1992).
• New Zealand agriculture: US$ 2.3 billion (Matheson and Schrader, 1987).
• China agriculture (four major crops - cotton, rapeseed, sunflower and tea): US$ 0.7
billion. (Partpap, U. 2002)

14. Bees – Without Them, No Food!

15. Bee’s Pollination Statistics
 According to the USDA, the % of crop
plants pollinated by bees::
 100% Almond
 90% Apple
 90% Broccoli
 90% Blueberry
 90% Onion
 80% Cherry
 80% Celery
 65% Onion
 2% Peanut
 1% Grape

16. Importance of Bees and Their Loss
 According to a 2006 National Academy Science
Report:
 Pollination vectors, including bees, have been
declining across the US for over 2 decades
 Continued decreases in the wild (and commercial)
populations could disrupt food production and
ecosystems
 Specific warning on decline of the Honeybee
 Honeybee pollinates more than 110 commercially
grown crops vital to the US agriculture, including
33% of agricultural groups
 Globally, 33% of the human diet comes from
insect pollinated plants and the honey bee is
responsible for 80% of that pollination!
 Honeybees live on the honey they make from the
nectar and pollen collected – they also use it to feed
their young!

17. Importance of Bees and Their Loss
 According to a 2006 National Academy Science
Report:
 In the US, honeybee colonies are managed by
beekeepers who rent their services out for
pollination for crops including almonds, apples
and blueberries
 By 1994, these colonies had replaced an est.
98% of the free range (native) honeybees
 Since the 1980s, there has been a 30% drop in
the managed honeybee population
 >25% of the 2.4 million honey bee colonies
(each with 30,000-100,000 individual bees) have
been lost since 1994 (in 2006)
 Bee keepers inspect once healthy colonies,
find adult worker bees gone and an
abandoned queen bee often overnight!
• “Bee Colony Collapse Disorder” origins is not
known but there are several thoughts

18. Importance of Bees and Their Loss
 Importance of the Honeybee (Time (8/19/13)):
 Bees were imported into North America in the 17th
century and thrived unto recently
 Western honey bee is responsible for 33% of the food
we eat
 From the blueberry bogs of Maine to the almond
orchards of California, they are responsible for a $15
billion value to farming each year
 In June, a Whole Foods store in Rhode Island,
temporary removed products of bees – 237 of 534
items were removed! Including apples, lemons and
zucchini! And honey!
 75% of Beekeepers are no longer caring for hives in
the past 15 years, many after 40 years in business; we
are losing our beekeepers also!
 “Honeybees are the glue that holds our agricultural
systems together“ reported in The Beekeeper’s Lament

19. Case studies : valuing pollination
China
• Hand pollination in China (Maoxian county in Hengduan Mountains of China) – e.g.
apples and pears.
• Provides employment & income generating opportunities to many people during apple
flowering season.
• Expensive, time consuming and highly unsustainable option for crop pollination due to
increasing labour scarcity and costs. A large part of farmers’ income is used in managing
pollination of their crop.
• Bee-keepers do not rent out their hives, even during the flowering season, due to excessive
use of pesticides
India
• Bees (Apis cerana or A. mellifera) used in India (Himachal Pradesh in NW
Himalayas) for apple pollination: fees for renting bee colonies Indian rupees
800/- (US$ 16) per colony for two weeks. (Partap, 98).

20. Soil Organism Beneficial for
Plant

21. Provides many Ecosystem
Services
• nutrient cycling
• regulates the dynamics of soil
organic matter
• soil C sequestration and
• reduced GHG emissions
• modifies soil physical structure and
maintains water regimes
• enhances amount/efficiency of plant
nutrient acquisition
• enhances plant health...
These services are essential to the
functioning of natural ecosystems AND
an important resource for the
sustainable management of
agricultural systems (crops, pasture,
trees and rangeland).
Productive and environmental benefits
Enhances Agricultural
Production: soil quality and
health and plant health

22. Determining the services from soil biodiversity
Benefits of ecological functions performed by soil organisms
Soil biodiversity is extremely complex (not well understood), however based on
food web or functional domain approaches 4 main functional groups of soil
organisms may be proposed See interaction web below:
Root
feeders
Soil
engineers
Litter
transformers
or engineers
Litter and soil
predators
Aboveground
predators
Aboveground
herbivores
Brussaard 1998
Soil
properties
Litter
fragmentation
Aggregate
production

23. Natural Enemy, Biological Control and
Agriculture

24. Biological control
• Synthetic chemicals can pollute and be health hazards.
• Biological control (biocontrol) avoids this.
• Biocontol entails battling pests and weeds with
other organisms that are natural enemies of those
pests and weeds.
• (“The enemy of my enemy is my friend.”)

25. Biological control
• Biocontrol has had
success stories.
• Bacillus
thuringiensis (Bt) =
soil bacterium that
kills many insects. In
many cases,
seemingly safe and
effective.
Figure 9.7
Cactus moth, Cactoblastis cactorum
(above), was used to wipe out invasive
prickly pear cactus in Australia.

26. But biocontrol is risky
• Most biocontrol agents are introduced from
elsewhere.
• Some may turn invasive and become pests
themselves!
• Cactus moths brought to the Caribbean jumped to
Florida, are eating native cacti, and spreading.
• Wasps and flies brought to Hawaii to control crop
pests are parasitizing native caterpillars in wilderness
areas.

27. Some Three Trophic Interraction that
beneficial for agriculture

28. A Tri-Trophic Example
Crop Plants
(Solanaceae)
Aphids
(Hemiptera)
ParasitoidsPlants Insect Herbivores
Parasitic wasps
(Hymenoptera)
Herbivory causes
yellowing of leaves,
curled leaves, stunted
growth, wilting, low
harvesting yields and
death of the plant
Pierce stems and leaves
to feed on the plants –
specialize on one species
or numerous species
Lay eggs directly inside
the aphids and consume
them from the inside out

29. A Tri-Trophic Approach
• About 85% of Hemiptera are herbivorous with high
host specificity for many large plant families
(Asteraceae, Fabaceae, and Poaceae)
• Hempitera are serious agricultural pests (armored
scales, mealy bugs, potato leafhoppers, Lygus bugs)
• Vectors of viral and bacterial diseases (Green peach
aphid is a vector of over 100 plant viruses)
• Parasitic Hymenoptera are very beneficial as
biological control agents
• The relationship between these groups is of
significant ecological and economic importance

30. Pest and Agriculture

31. Mediterranean fruit fly damage to grapefruit
Effect Insect Pest to Plant
Comodity

32. Why the emergency?
An African fly.
Spread around the world. First
known in Florida in 1929.
Continuing eradication efforts
prevent it from becoming
established and destroying our
citrus economy.
Grapefruit trees with fallen fruit
were prime suspect locations
indicating presence of
destructive medflies.

33. Why the emergency?
• One of Florida’s largest agricultural commodities
• Florida produces 80% of all United States citrus.
• Total citrus production is 2nd in the world following Brazil.
– 287 million boxes (15 million metric tons) of citrus
– On-tree value (before value-added operations such as shipping and
processing) about $879 million
– Post value-added worth about $9.13 billion
• 90,000 jobs and 800,000 acres of cultivation in 32 counties;
$39 million in ad valorem (property) taxes; and $900 million
in taxes at all government levels

34. What are the various ecological effects of
herbivores?
• Herbivores can affect plant fitness
– Reduce plant growth rate
– Reduce plant reproductive output
• Directly as seed predators
• Indirectly by reducing plant biomass
• Herbivores can control plant distribution and abundance
• Through alterations of plant distribution patterns and relative
abundances, can alter plant community structure and composition
• The effects of herbivores on plants often depend on the degree of
feeding specialization.

35. Pest damage to crops is significant.
From Fig. 1-9

36. Crop Injury in More Detail
• Crop Injury
– Tissue Injury
• Leaves
• Structural
• Roots
• Flowers and Fruiting/Reproductive Tissues
• General Systemic Injury
– Weed Effects
• Competition for Water, Light, Nutrients
• Allelopathy
• Other Economic Effects

37. Tissue Injury to Leaves
Abscission -- Leaf prematurely dropped by the plant, often while still green.

38. Tissue Injury to Leaves
Bleaching Leaf turns white or nearly so. Usually caused by using the wrong
herbicide.

39. Tissue Injury to Leaves
Chlorosis Leaf tissue loses its chlorophyll and turns yellow. May occur in
spots.
Chlorosis in soybeans. Individual leaves (left) and at the field level (right).

40. Tissue Injury to Leaves
Crinkling Leaf takes on a crinkled texture. Usually associated with viruses or toxic
effects of saliva from homopterous insects.
Crinkling may occur throughout the leaf (left) or may be confined to edges (right).

41. Tissue Injury to Leaves
Cupping and Curling Leaves cup up or down or they curl inward from the edges.
Downward cupping along main vein of each leaflet in soybeans caused by Bean
Common Mosaic Potyvirus

42. Tissue Injury to Leaves
Edge Feeding Leaves chewed and eaten from the edges. Feeding lesions can have smooth
or jagged edges. Usually caused by insects w/chewing mouthparts.
Leaf edge feeding on rhododendron leaves by adult black vine root weevils.

43. Tissue Injury to Leaves
Hole Feeding Leaves have holes chewed through them. Caused by insects w/chewing
mouthparts.
Yellow poplar weevil adult feeding on yellow poplar

44. Tissue Injury to Leaves
Mines Caused by small, immature beetles or flies that live in-between the upper and
lower leaf surfaces. The shape of the mine, along with the plant species being attacked,
is useful in identifying the pest species involved.
Frass-linear leaf
mine on birch
leaf. Mines
come in many
shapes.

45. Tissue Injury to Leaves
Mottling Leaf is not uniform in color but is, instead, a mottled mixture of
different shades of green to yellow.
Soybean leaf mottling caused by the Bean Pod Mottle Virus.

46. Tissue Injury to Leaves
Necrosis Areas of dead tissue which usually sloughs off over time.
Necrosis simply means dead tissue
and may occur in any pattern.
Necrosis may be in spots (top left),
on leaf margins (above), or follow
leaf veins (bottom left). Other
patterns are possible as well.

47. Tissue Injury to Leaves
Rolling Leaf is rolled up like a cigar. Usually caused by caterpillars that use
the rolled leaf as a pupation chamber.
Leaves may be rolled entirely (above) or only
partially (left).

48. Tissue Injury to Leaves
Shothole Small holes in a straight line across the leaf. Usually caused by insects
that bore through the developing leaf when the un-emerged leaf is still rolled up in
the plant’s whorl.

49. Tissue Injury to LeavesSkeletonization Leaf tissue between the veins is removed but the veins remain
intact leaving a skeleton-like appearance.
Lindin leaf skeletonized by Japanese
beetle. Note that the distal leaf tissue is
relatively normal looking indicating that
the leaf veins are fully functional.

50. Tissue Injury to Leaves
Spots Caused by fungal, bacterial, and viral diseases. Spots vary in size, shape and
number and may be solid or only peripheral (e.g. ring spot, frog-eye spot).
Bacterial leaf spot on pepper
Fungal leaf spot on soybean
Viral ring spot on
purple cone
flower

51. Tissue Injury to Leaves
Stippling Large numbers of tiny pin-prick feeding lesions cause by mites or other
minute herbivores with piercing-sucking mouthparts.
Leaf stippling by leaf hoppers (sucking insect). Non-uniform pattern. Stippling = dead
cells surrounding feeding puncture.

52. Tissue Injury to Leaves
Windowpaning One side of the leaf is scrapped off leaving the other side
intact and translucent. This gives the feeding lesion a window-like appearance.
Primarily caused by some young beetle and moth larvae.
Cereal leaf beetle windowpaning on wheat
(left); European corn borer windowpaning
on corn (right).

53. Structural Tissue Injury
• Galls (may be on any tissue)
• Interference with transport
– Xylem injury
– Phloem injury
• Interference with structural support
• Shape/appearance impact
– Abnormal growth
– Shoot dieback

54. Galls
Western gall rust on
Ponderosa pine branch
Soybean roots with galls from root
knot nematode (right) vs. healthy
root (left).
Galls on oak leaves from
cynipid wasps
Olive knot gall
(caused by
Pseudmomonas
bacteria) on olive
main trunk
Can occur on all tissues;
leaves, stems/trunks,
branches, roots, etc.
Ash flower galls
caused by a mite

55. Structural Tissue Injury -- Xylem
Many insects, such as the squash
vine borer feed on xylem tissue.
Tomato wilt is caused by fungi in
the genus Fusarium which plugs
xylem tissue preventing
water/mineral transport.

56. Structural Tissue Injury -- Phloem
Phloem discoloration and necrosis
caused by spiroplasma infection.
Bark beetle gallery (right): The adult Beetle lays a line
of eggs along a gallery. The grubs hatch, eat phloem
tissue until they mature.
Phloem discoloration by San Jose scale
on apple.

57. Structural Tissue Injury –
Interference with Structural Integrity
Stalk breakage (lodging) caused by fungal stalk rot (left) and European corn borer
(right)

58. Structural Injury – Abnormal
Growth
Many plant pathogens and some
insects cause abnormal growth in
plants. Common forms are called
rosettes (above) and witch’s brooms
(right).

59. Root Injury – Fibrous Roots
Varying degrees of corn rootworm injury (left) and resulting lodged plants (right)
Phytophthora
root rot on
alfalfa (left);
Fusarium root
rot on soybean
(right)

60. Root Injury – Storage Organs
Black rot on carrot (left), nematode injury to carrots (middle), carrot weevil injury (right)

61. Flower & Fruit Injury
Codling moth in apple
Apple scab
on apple
(right)
Left: Western
flower thrips
feeding injury
on impatiens.
Above: Bean pod mottle virus in soybeans (left)
vs. uninfected beans (right)