By Jeremy Simes • PHOTOGRAPHY BY RACHEL BOEKEL
Unearthing the nature of bugs through the eyes of
Alberta’s top pest expert
Thegood, thebadand
thebeautiful
The insect world is large, ambiguous and even violent.
There are bugs that prey on valuable crops, insect-o-predators that devour those pests, and critters that simply sit on the sidelines,
ingesting the waste created by their counterparts. Despite their different roles, each insect is part of an ecosystem that assists in crop
development. In fact, the majority of insects benefit the soil.
Scott Meers has always been fascinated by the relationship between insects and the land. As a young boy, he would rummage
through fields, poke anthills and inspect wildflowers on his family farm near Acadia. He turned childhood curiosity into a career as an
entomologist with Alberta Agriculture and Rural Development (AARD). His analysis hasn’t stopped, but it has become more technical.
Meers works with about 300 different co-operators each year who provide information to him, which he uses to help inform farmers
about things to watch for.
As one of AARD’s top entomologists, Meers informs farmers of the season’s pests through live, dynamic maps online. His knowledge
is crucial—when it’s time to strike a pest that nature can’t defeat, Meers is ready to advise on how best to handle the vermin.
GW:
What inspired you to become an
entomologist?
Meers:
I’ve worked a number of years
with producers. I was a crop specialist and
a district agriculturalist before becoming
an entomologist. Compared to weed con-
trol, we didn’t have a lot of information on
insect control to make good decisions. So
I really wanted to further explore that.
Insect control is a fascinating area.
There’s a lot of cool stuff that happens
with entomology. There’s just such an eco-
system in fields. It’s never just the pest—
it’s the pest and its natural enemies. There
are a lot of factors at play with insects.
GW:
Which insects really fascinate you?
Meers:
I think every insect is fascinating
in its own right. They’re a result of a long
line of evolution. My interest comes from
questions like, ‘What makes an insect able
to find a perfect place to lay eggs? And
find a crop that it prefers to attack over
just anything random?’ And, ‘How does a
natural enemy of a wheat stem sawfly find
that sawfly and take advantage of it?’
You can almost look at any insect and
say, ‘Wow. How did it work that out?’ It’s
just generations and generations of evolu-
tion that specialized them to be the way
they are. The diversity and sheer volume
of insects also amaze me. If we really
sat down and thought about it, together
insects have a real lot of biomass.
GW:
Are they all as bad as people think?
Meers:
The vast majority of insects are
beneficial or neutral. We only have a
handful that are pests. It’s kind of inter-
esting because our first impression of all
insects is that they are bad. That’s certain-
ly not the case.
GW:
What do beneficial insects do?
Meers:
If an insect is a specialist like a
parasitoid, it kills off pests. That’s their
job. It’s how they make their livelihood:
feeding on the pest.
There’s a whole other group of insects
that are decomposing organic matter and
helping with nutrient cycling. There are
also a lot of neutral insects that are just
there. We don’t even know what they’re
doing most of the time—probably just
feeding on organic matter in the soil.
GW:
How many problem insects are
there on the Prairies?
Meers:
We have seven major insect sur-
veys we do each year. One is a grasshopper
survey containing several different spe-
cies. There are several dozen that could
cause trouble. But there are about 10 or a
dozen species that give us real trouble.
GW:
How do today’s pests differ from
10, 20 and even 50 years ago?
Meers:
We have some of the same old
ones. Wheat stem sawfly was first found
in the 1800s in Manitoba. We’ve had
grasshopper problems since the time we
settled in the Canadian Prairies. So we
have everything from those to newer
ones like wheat midge, which has been a
problem in Alberta for the last 10 years.
Spring
2015
grainswest.com
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