现在在美国家庭中常见的亚洲骆驼板球

For Immediate Release

Dr. Mary Jane Epps mjepps@ncsu.edu 919.513.4439

Holly Menninger博士 holly_menninger@ncsu.edu 919.515.3353

罗布·邓恩博士 rob_dunn@ncsu.edu

Matt Shipman matt_shipman@ncsu.edu 919.515.6386

With their long, spiky legs and their propensity for eating anything, including each other, camel crickets are the stuff of nightmares. Research from North Carolina State University finds that non-native camel cricket species have spread into homes across the eastern United States.

“The good news is that camel crickets don’t bite or pose any kind of threat to humans,” says Dr. Mary Jane Epps, a postdoctoral researcher at NC State and lead author of a paper about the research.

The research stems from a chance encounter, when a cricket taxonomist found an invasive cricket in the home of one of the NC State researchers. Wondering how common the species might be in the U.S., the researchers tapped in to their citizen science network, which is part of Dr. Rob Dunn’s Your Wild Life lab. Dunn is an associate professor of biological sciences at NC State and co-author of the paper.

研究人员询问公众在家中是否有骆驼板球（也称为洞穴板球），如果是的话，他们是否会在物理标本中发送照片或邮寄。他们得到的回应令人惊讶。

90％以上的受访者报告的最常见物种是温室骆驼（Diestrammena Asynamora). Native to Asia, this species was first sighted in the U.S. in the 19th century – but it was thought to be rare outside of commercial greenhouses. Instead, the researchers found that it is now far more common than native camel crickets in and near homes east of the Mississippi.

“We don’t know what kind of impact this species has on local ecosystems though it’s possible that the greenhouse camel cricket could be driving out native camel cricket species in homes,” Epps says.

研究人员还对北卡罗来纳州罗利市的10所房屋的院子进行了取样。他们发现了大量的温室骆驼板球，在最接近房屋的院子区域中发现了更高的数量。

公众提交的照片也引起了第二个惊喜。

“似乎有第二种亚洲物种，日本二伊斯特拉梅纳（Diestrammena）, that hasn’t been formally reported in the U.S. before, but seems to be showing up in homes in the Northeast,” Epps says. “However, that species has only been identified based on photos. We’d love to get a physical specimen to determine whether it isD. japanica。”

研究人员强调，如果房主在家里发现骆驼板球，他们不应该惊慌。

“因为他们是清道夫，所以骆驼板球实际上可能在我们的地下室或车库中提供重要的服务，吃了在那里积累的死者，”北卡罗来纳州和公司野生生活实验室的公共科学总监Holly Menninger博士说。- 纸的作者。

“We know remarkably little about these camel crickets, such as their biology or how they interact with other species,” Menninger says. “We’re interested in continuing to study them, and there’s a lot to learn.”

The paper, “太大了，无法注意到：北美房屋中亚洲骆驼板球的神秘入侵，”在线发表在《开放式杂志》peerj. The paper was co-authored by Nathan LaSala, who did the work while a student at Enloe High School. The research was supported by National Science Foundation grant number 0953390.

-shipman-

Note to Editors:研究摘要如下。

“Too big to be noticed: Cryptic invasion of Asian camel crickets in North American houses”

Authors玛丽简Epps,冬青l .门宁格和罗伯特·R. Dunn, North Carolina State University; Nathan LaSala, Enloe High School

Published: Sept. 2,peerj

DOI：http：//dx.doi.org/10.7717/peerj.523

Abstract:Despite the rapid expansion of the built environment, we know little about the biology of species living in human-constructed habitats. Camel crickets (Rhaphidophoridae) are commonly observed in North American houses and include a range of native taxa as well as the AsianDiestrammena Asynamora(Adelung), a species occasionally reported from houses though considered to be established only in greenhouses. We launched a continental-scale citizen science campaign to better understand the relative distributions and frequency of native and nonnative camel crickets in human homes across North America. Participants contributed survey data about the presence or absence of camel crickets in homes, as well as photographs and specimens of camel crickets allowing us to identify the major genera and/or species in and around houses. Together, these data offer insight into the geographical distribution of camel crickets as a presence in homes, as well as the relative frequency and distribution of native and nonnative camel crickets encountered in houses. In so doing, we show that the exoticDiestrammena Asynamoranot only has become a common presence in eastern houses, but is found in these environments far more frequently than native camel crickets. Supplemental pitfall trapping along transects in 10 urban yards in Raleigh, NC, revealed thatD. asynamoracan be extremely abundant locally around some homes, with as many as 52 individuals collected from pitfalls in a single yard over two days of sampling. The number ofD. asynamoraindividuals present in a trap was negatively correlated with the trap’s distance from a house, suggesting that these insects may be preferentially associated with houses but also are present outside. In addition, we report the establishment in the northeastern United States of a second exotic species, putativelyDiestrammena JaponicaBlatchley，以前在文献中没有证明。我们的结果为生活在人类家庭中的骆驼板球的相对频率和分布提供了新的见解，并强调了建筑环境作为两种鲜为人知的入侵物种的栖息地的重要性。