Mark Isaak
May-28-93 08:05AM
More on Pesticide Resistance, and Wings

Organization: The Aurora Group, Palo Alto, CA
From: isaak@aurora.com (Mark Isaak)
Message-ID: <1993May28.160521.24055@aurora.com>
Reply-To: isaak@aurora.com (Mark Isaak)
Newsgroups: talk.origins

A while ago I posted something telling how the theory of evolution is
used against the problem of pesticide resistance.  An article in the
_Annual Review of Entomology_, vol. 37, 1992 goes into much more
detail than the simplistic account I gave.  In particular, it points
out that the "blast the hell out of them" approach is the best strategy
against developing resistance under certain circumstances (when genes
conferring resistance are rare and untreated populations will
immigrate), but practical problems, such as strong insecticides becoming
weak over time, keep that strategey from being very useful.

The full reference is: Denholm, I., and M. W. Rowland.  Tactics for
managing pesticide resistance in arthropods: theory and practice,
_Annual Review of Entomology_, #37 (1992), 91-112.

The same journal has an article "Functional morphology of insect wings"
by Robin J. Wootton, which has a couple paragraphs on the evolution of
insect wings.  The most relevant point to talk.origins is that some
insect fossils show organs in an apparently intermediate stage before
true "winghood."  From the article:  "The winglets, or 'paranotal lobes,'
on the prothorax of some groups, best developed in the Palaeozoic
Palaeodictyoptera (88) and in some protorthopteroid types (39), appear
as if they were sometimes movably articulated and may perhaps have
played a minor aerodynamic role in e.g. stabilization, but they can
never--after the earliest stages in the evolution of flight--have been
significant lifting surfaces."

References cited above:
88. Kukalova-Peck, J. 1978. Origin and evolution of insect wings, and
their relation to metamorphosis, as documented by the fossil record.
_J. Morphol._ 156:53-125
39. Carpenter, F. M. 1935. The Lower Permian insects of Kansas.  Part 7.
The Order Protoperlaria.  _Proc. Am. Acad. Arts Sci._ 70:103-46.
--
Mark Isaak           "There lives more faith in honest doubt,
isaak@aurora.com      Believe me, than in half the creeds." - Tennyson