Big agriculture’s efforts to tame nature are proving effective when it comes to human-population control, with cancer related deaths on the rise throughout the industrialized world. But culling the heard of pesky crop-eating insects is proving nearly impossible, as studys show that bacterias and the bugs that eat them develop a resistance to articificial toxins within a generation of exposure. Apparently, bacterias have evolved the ability to digest toxins and the bugs eat the bacteria, which grows inside the insect’s gut, making invincible to the toxin. Match point for mother Earth.
“Several factors had to come together for this to take place,” reports Ars Technica. “[B]ut, one was the heavy use of fenitrothion, which is described as ‘one of the most popular organophosphorus insecticides used worldwide” by the authors of a study of these insects. It has apparently been so widely deployed that a variety of bacteria have evolved the ability to use it as a food source. Most of these simply inhabit the soil in the fields where it is used and, at worst, cut down on the level of insecticide present and thereby make life a bit easier for the insects.’
We’ve already known from countless examples that repeated, heavy use of a single pesticide (or drug) can help select for the evolution of resistant organisms. But generally, this selection is thought to occur over multiple generations which, for insects, tends to take a fair bit of time. Bacteria, however, can go through several generations in a day, and a single source of Burkholderia can presumably be transferred to many insects within a population.