Shimon Steinberg 談以蟲制蟲！

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講者：Shimon Steinberg
2010年4月演講，2010年10月在TEDxTelAviv上線
MyOOPS開放式課程
翻譯：劉契良
編輯：洪曉慧
簡繁轉換：趙弘
後制：劉契良
字幕影片後制：謝旻均
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Shimon Steinberg 談以蟲制蟲！
我自己是一位昆蟲愛好者，並非從小如此，而是後天養成，上大學時，我在特拉維夫大學主修動物學，從此愛上昆蟲，在動物學的領域內，我修讀了昆蟲課程，或說是昆蟲學，即昆蟲科學，之後，我自問，要如何將所學化作實用或貢獻於這門昆蟲學？後來，我轉向植物保護的領域，保護植物免受蟲害，免受害蟲侵襲，就在植物保護的領域中，我走到了生物性害蟲控管的學科，事實上，我們的定義是使用活的有機體降低植物害蟲的數量，這是植物保護領域中的全新學科，旨在減少化學藥劑的使用，而生物性害蟲控管，或是我們所談的這些益蟲，牠們已存在世上數千年，年代久遠，但僅在過去 120 年間，才有人開始，或說，人們才知道更多如何開發並利用這種生物控管現象，或更確切地說，自然控管現象使用牠們的需求進行控管，因為生物控管現象，就發生在各位家中後院，拿個放大鏡，就像我手中這個，這個能放大 10 倍，沒錯，10 倍，掀開它來，翻到葉子的背面，便是一個全新的世界，葉上有各種小昆蟲，小蜘蛛，長度僅 1 毫米或 1.5 毫米，2 毫米大小而已，還能順便鑑定是益蟲或是害蟲，這種自然控管現象幾乎無所不在，就在這幢建築的前方，我相信，只要細查所有的植物便可觀察到，無所不在，而我們必需要知道如何加以開發，我們現在就一起來瀏覽一些案例。
何謂害蟲？牠們對植物造成的實際傷害何在？其天敵為何？即生物控管媒介，或是我們所說的益蟲，基本上，我要談的是昆蟲與蜘蛛，或亦可稱之為蟎，六足有機體的昆蟲，蜘蛛或蟎，後者為八足有機體，請看螢幕圖片，這是害蟲，破壞性極大的害蟲─葉蟎，因為牠們會像蜘蛛一樣結很多網，中間那隻是雌蟎，兩雙小雌蟎在左右兩旁，右側還有一粒蟎蛋，這張圖顯示出牠們造成的病蟲害，右邊是一片胡瓜葉，中間是棉花葉，左邊則是蕃茄葉，及一些［不清楚］的葉子，葉色會由綠轉白，因為那些蜘蛛的吸吮穿透，形狀即如其口器形狀，但是自然也提供我們有益於植物的蜘蛛，這隻是捕植蟎，大小有如葉蟎，不會大於一至兩毫米長，其行動迅速，專門追捕葉蟎，各位可看到這位「姑娘」大開殺戒，圖左，牠刺穿圖左實驗蟎的身體，吸其體液，五分鐘之後，就這下場，典型的死屍，皺縮、被吸乾的葉蟎死屍，左右是兩隻飽足的捕植蟎，左邊是雌蟎，右邊是年輕小蟎，能讓牠們撐上 24 小時的大餐，約是五隻葉蟎，即害蟲，或 15 到 20 顆害蟲蟎蛋，另外，牠們永遠都是饑腸轆轆。
（笑聲）
蚜蟲是另一例，現在以色列正值春天，氣溫會陡升，那些害蟲，即那些，蚜蟲爬在各種植物身上，像是木槿、馬櫻丹，所有的嫩葉及一切在春天怒放的新芽，順道一提，蚜蟲僅有雌性，就像亞馬遜女人國，僅有雌性繁衍雌性，完全沒有雄性，單性生殖，而牠們顯然樂中此道，這是牠們造成的病蟲害，蚜蟲分泌黏稠帶糖份的液體，稱作蜜露，這裡僅有幾滴位於植物的上方，這是一片典型的胡瓜葉，由綠轉黑，因為煤煙病的黑菌覆蓋其上，而這便是救星，寄生蜂，牠們不食肉，但寄生，不是兩腳的寄生物，而顯然是八腳寄生物，這是隻寄生蜂，一樣的是，苗條身型不超過兩亳米，行動迅速且精明的有翅昆蟲，從這張圖可看出真實的寄生行為，有如特技表演一般的動作，牠正視位於右側的獵物，彎腰，注入一粒卵，將一粒卵注入蚜蟲的體液中，蚜蟲當然有想要掙脫，牠亂踼亂咬，還分泌出不同的液體，但全都無效，最終，寄生卵還是被注入到蚜蟲的體液中，視氣溫而定，幾天後，蜂卵會孵化，寄生有機體的幼蟲會從內開始享用蚜蟲大餐，一切都是純天然，這並非小說，就在各位家的後院，就在後院，即可發生，但這就是最終的結果，最終的結果即是木乃伊，M-U-M-M-Y，這就是死蚜蟲的真實圖解，我們還可以看到內部的變化，事實上，成長中的寄生有機體在幾分鐘後即探出半身，孵化過程即將完成，情節有如電影一般，而過程僅幾分鐘的時間，如果，新生蜂是雌性，牠會馬上找雄性交配，不斷地交配，因為其命甚短，這個雌蜂僅能活三到四天，而牠必需產下約 400 粒卵，這意謂著牠要找到 400 隻有害蚜蟲，產卵，將卵注入蚜蟲體液中，這不是特例個案，天敵到處皆是。
我再舉最後一例，一樣，由害蟲說起，這是薊馬，這些昆蟲都有奇怪的名字，但我不要以其拉丁名來叨擾各位，僅用其俗名，這隻外型好看、苗條的害蟲其實窮兇惡極，看看這些甜椒，這些並非富異國風情的裝飾用甜椒，而是不能食用的甜椒，因為它們都含有病毒，透過薊馬成蟲所傳播，而這便是其天敵，花椿象，牠們體型極小，圖中，黑色是成蟲，另有兩隻幼蟲，全在進食，成蟲刺穿薊馬，幾分鐘便吸乾其體液，緊接著後續的捕殺，永不停歇，如果將這些花椿象益蟲，像是放置到甜椒作物園中，牠們會聚到花朵上，像這一朵就擠滿了肉食昆蟲，皆是益蟲，牠們會吃掉薊馬害蟲，這是非常正面的情勢，對作物本身及其成長皆無傷害，在這種情況下，一切都會很完美，但問題是，各位可看到，那是一對一的天擇模式，害蟲對上天敵，而我們所做的是在以色列東北的集體農場中設置裝備，大量生產這種天敵性昆蟲，換句話說，我們在那所做的是擴增，我們擴增了自然管控，或說，生物管控現象，在那 35,000 平方公尺，技術最先進的溫室中，我們大量培養那些捕植蟎，那些花椿象、寄生蜂等，種類繁多，溫室的地理位置非常優越，約旦山脈在一頭，另一頭是約旦河谷，冬天氣候溫和，夏天暖和，此等條件極適合大量繁殖那些昆蟲，但大量生產並不意謂著操弄基因，我們不幹GMO，就是什麼基因改造有機體之類的，我們取之自然，我們唯一做的事情是提供這些昆蟲最優的生長條件，在溫室內或控溫間中以利提高產量，倍增並不斷繁衍，而這便是我們得到的成果，若將此放在顯微鏡下，即可看出，左上角是一隻捕植蟎個體，大圖即是繁衍出的大量捕植蟎，各位可看到我手中這個試管樣本，內含一克的捕植蟎，一克即含有 80,000 隻的捕植蟎，80,000 隻捕植蟎，這足以管控一英畝，4,000 平方公尺草莓園中的葉蟎，效期長達一整季，或幾乎一整年的時間，相信我，我們的產能可達數十公斤，每年如此，這就是我所謂的現象擴增，但我們卻未破壞平衡，相對地，因為我們將此法引進各個平衡已遭農藥破壞的栽培園中，我們帶入那些自然天敵性昆蟲以扭轉局勢，增加一些自然平衡的力量，讓農作地能降低農藥的使用，這即是核心概念，影響為何？
此表顯示出實際的影響，關於成功的生物管控，透過益蟲的幫忙，舉例而言，在以色列，我們將超過 1,000 公頃的土地，10,000 dunams 是以色列的計量單位，劃入甜椒生物性害蟲控管的保護中，75％ 的殺蟲劑用量有效降低，而以色列草苺的藥劑量降得更多，80％ 的殺蟲劑用量，尤其是針對草莓害蟲防治，所以，影響巨大，這也帶出另一個問題，特別是詢問栽培者與農民，為何要用生物管控？，為何要用益蟲？不同的答案會隨詢問的人數而增加，但若我們到訪這個地方，位於以色列東南，位於大裂口山谷的 Arava 地區，當地是頂尖以色列農業珍寶的栽種地，特別是在溫室或網室的環境下，如果各位開車造訪，便可見到，此景頓現沙漠之中，若深入探訪定可看到此景，祖父母帶著兒孫散播著自然天敵性益蟲，而非穿著特製防護衣和防毒面具噴灑農藥，使用安全，這是我們從栽培者口中得到的首要答案，何以要使用生物管控；第二是，許多栽培者實際上是被嚇呆了，因為抗藥性的嚴重性，害蟲將能完全無懼於農藥，就像白喉對抗生素產生了抗藥性，同理可證，而且過程極短，幸運的是，無論是生物管控或甚至是自然管控，害蟲的抵抗性極弱，幾乎不曾發生，因為這是演化，這是自然比例，不像抗藥性，在用藥後會產生；第三，公共訴求，公共訴求，愈來愈多的公共訴求要降低農藥使用量，愈來愈多的栽培者瞭解到這個事實，他們該在任何可行的狀況下放棄藥劑管控，並以生物管控取而代之，甚至有一些栽培者對昆蟲非常感興趣，害蟲與益蟲，頭戴著放大鏡，安然地走在作物園中，最後，我要公開我的願景，我的夢想，因為這是現實的考量，核計這兩者間的差距，對比整體盈收，全球生物管控產業僅有 2 億 ５ 千萬美元，而殺蟲劑產業整體在全球各種作物的盈收，我想約是 10 倍之類的（譯註：講者講槁有出入），25 億美元，這之間的大落差極需平衡，所以，我們實際能做的是啥？我們如何平衡或說縮小兩者之間的落差？就在這幾年的時間裡，首先，我們必需要找出更多茁壯、有益及可靠的生物解決方案，更多益蟲，無論是大量生產或實際將其保存在田野中，第二，創造出更強大且嚴格的公共訴求，降低農藥使用於農作生蔬上，第三，提高栽培者的認知，使其警覺到這個產業的潛能，如此，上述落差便可縮小，一步一腳印，實際縮小落差，這是我的最後一張講稿，我們想說的是，我們可以看到未來，給自然一個機會，我謹代表所有的生物控管，訴願與實作者，無論是在以色列或外國，真的，給自然一個機會！
感謝聆聽。
（掌聲）
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以下為系統擷取之英文原文
About this talk
At TEDxTelAviv, Shimon Steinberg looks at the difference between pests and bugs -- and makes the case for using good bugs to fight bad bugs, avoiding chemicals in our quest for perfect produce.

About Shimon Steinberg

Shimon Steinberg's biotech lab researches ways to harness the natural benefits of insects on a massive scale. Full bio and more links

Transcript

I'm a bug lover, myself -- not from childhood, by the way, but rather late. When I bachelored, majoring in zoology in Tel Aviv University, I kind of fell in love with bugs. And then, within zoology, I took the course, or the discipline, of entomology, the science of insects. And then I thought, myself, how can I be practical, or help in the science of entomology? And then I moved to the world of plant protection -- plant protection from insects, from bad bugs. And then within plant protection, I came into the discipline of biological pest control, which we actually define as the use of living organisms to reduce populations of noxious plant pests. So it's a whole discipline in plant protection that's aiming at the reduction of chemicals.

And biological pest control, by the way, or these good bugs that we are talking about, they've existed in the world for thousands and thousands of years, for a long, long time. But only in the last 120 years [have] people started, or people knew more and more how to exploit, or how to use, this biological control phenomenon, or in fact, natural control phenomenon, to their own needs. Because biological control phenomenon, you can see it in your back yard. Just take a magnifying glass. You see what I have here? That's a magnifier times 10. Yeah, times 10. Just open it. You just twist leaves, and you see a whole new world of minute insects, or little spiders of one millimeter, one and a half, two millimeters long, and you can distinguish between the good ones and the bad ones. So this phenomenon of natural control exists literally everywhere. Here, in front of this building, I'm sure. Just have a look at the plants. So it's everywhere, and we need to know how to exploit it.

Well let us go hand by hand and browse through just a few examples. What is a pest? What damage does it actually inflict on the plant? And what is the natural enemy, the biologically controlled agent, or the good bug, that we are talking about? In general, I'm going to talk about insects and spiders, or mites, let us call them. Insects -- those six-legged organism and spiders or mites, the eight-legged organisms. Let's have a look at that. Here is a pest, devastating pest, a spider mite, because it does a lot of webbing like a spider. You see the mother in-between and two daughters, probably on the left and right, and a single egg on the right-hand side. And then you see what kind of damage it can inflict. On your right-hand side you can see a cucumber leaf, and on the middle, cotton leaf, and on the left a tomato leaf with these little [unclear] leaves, they can literally turn from green to white because of the sucking, piercing mouth parts of those spiders.

But here comes nature that provides us with a good spider. This is a predatory mite -- just as small as a spider mite, by the way, one millimeter, two millimeter long, not more than that, running quickly, hunting, chasing the spider mites. And here you can see this lady in action on your left-hand side -- just pierces such the body fluids on the left-hand side of the test mite. And after five minutes, this is what you see, just a typical dead corpse -- shriveled, sucked-out, dead corpse of the spider mite, and next to it, two satiated individuals of predatory mites, a mother on the left-hand side, a young nymph on the right-hand side. By the way, a meal for them for 24 hours is about five individuals of the spider mites, of the bad mites, or 15 to 20 eggs of the pest mites. By the way, they are hungry always.

(Laughter)

And there is another example: aphids. By the way, it's spring time now in Israel, when temperature rises sharply. You can see those bad ones, those aphids, all over the plants, in your hibiscus, in your lantana, in the young, fresh foliage of the spring flush, so-called. By the way, with aphids, you have only females, like Amazons. Females giving rise to females, giving rise to rise to other females. No males at all. Parthenogenesis, was so-called. And they are very happy with that, apparently. Here we can see the damage. Those aphids secrete some sticky, sugary liquid called honeydew, and this just globs the upper parts of the plant. Here you see a typical cucumber leaf that turned actually from green to black because of a black fungus, sooty mold, which is covering it.

And here comes the salvation through this parasitic wasp. Here we are not talking about a predator. Here we are talking a parasite, not a two-legged parasite, but an eight-legged parasite, of course. This is a parasitic wasp, again, two millimeters long, slender, a very quick and sharp flier. And here you can see this parasite in action, like in an acrobatic maneuver. She stands vis-a-vis in front of the victim at the right-hand side, bending its abdomen and inserting a single egg, a single egg into the body fluids of the aphid. By the way, the aphid tries to escape. She kicks and bites and secretes different liquids, but nothing will happen, in fact. Only the egg of the parasite will be be inserted into the body fluids of the aphid. And after a few days, depending upon temperature, the egg will hatch, and the larva of this parasitoid will eat the aphid from the inside. And this is all natural. This is all natural. This is not fiction, nothing at all. Again, in your backyard, in your backyard.

But this is the end result. This is the end result: Mummies -- M-U-M-M-Y. This is the visual result of a dead aphid. We come to see inside. In fact, a developing parasitoid that after a few minutes you see halfway out. The birth is almost complete. You can see, by the way, in definite movies, etc. And it takes just a few minutes. And if this is a female, she'll immediately mate with a male, and off she goes, because time is very short. This female can live only three to four days, and she needs to give rise to around 400 hundred eggs. That means she has 400 bad aphids to put her eggs into their body fluids. And this is of course not the end of it.

There is a whole wealth of other natural enemies and this is just the last example. Again, we'll start first with the pest: the thrips. By the way, all these weird names -- I didn't bother you with the Latin names of these creatures, okay, just the popular names. But this is a nice, slender, very bad pest. If you can see this, sweet peppers. This is not just an exotic, ornamental sweet pepper, this is a sweet pepper which is not consumable, because it is suffering from a viral disease transmitted by those thrip adults. And here comes the natural enemy, minute pirate bug, minute because it is rather small. Here you can see the adult, black, and two young ones. And again, in action. This adult pierces the thrips, sucking it within just several minutes, just going to the other prey, continuing all over the place. And if we spread those minute pirate bugs, the good ones, for example, in a sweet pepper plot, they go to the flowers. And look, this flower is flooded with predatory bugs, with the good ones, after wiping out the bad ones, the thrips. So this is a very positive situation, by the way. No harm to the developing fruit. No harm to the fruit set. Everything is just fine under these circumstances. But again, the question is, here you saw them on a one-to-one basis -- the pest, the natural enemy.

What we do is actually this. In Northeast Israel, in kibbutz there now, there is a facility that mass-produces those natural enemies. In other words, what we do there, we amplify, we amplify the natural control, or the biological control phenomenon. And in 35,000 sq. meters of state-of-the-art greenhouses, there, we are are mass-producing those predatory mites, those minute pirate bugs, those parasitic wasps, etc., etc. Many different parts. By the way, they have a very nice landscape. You see the Jordanian Mountains on the one hand and the Jordan Valley on the other hand, and a good, mild winter and a nice, hot summer, which is an excellent condition to mass-produce those creatures. And by the way, mass-production, it is not genetic manipulation. There are no GMO's, genetically modified organisms, whatsoever. We take them from nature, and the only thing that we do, we give them the optimal conditions, under the greenhouses, or in the climate rooms, in order to proliferate, multiply and reproduce. And that's what we get, in fact.

You see under a microscope. You see in the upper left corner, you see a single predatory mite. And this is the whole bunch of predatory mites. You see this [unclear]. You see this one. I have one gram of those predatory mites. One gram's 80,000 individuals, 80,000 individuals are good enough to control one acre, 4,000 sq. meters, of a strawberry plot against spider mites for the whole season, of almost one year. And we can produce from this, believe you me, several dozens of [unclear] on an annual basis. So this is what I call amplification of the phenomenon. And no, we do not disrupt the balance. On the contrary, because we bring it to every cultural plot where the balance was already disrupted by the chemicals, here we come with those natural enemies in order to reverse a little bit of the wheel and to bring more natural balance to the agricultural plot by reducing those chemicals. That's the whole idea.

And what is the impact? In this table, you can actually see what is the impact of a successful biological control by good bugs. For example, in Israel, where we employ more than 1,000 hectares -- 10,000 dunams in Israeli terms -- of biological pest controlling sweet pepper under protection, 75 percent of the pesticides were actually reduced. And Israeli strawberries, even more -- 80 percent of the pesticides, especially those aimed against pest mites in strawberries. So the impact is very strong. And there goes the question, especially if you ask growers, agriculturists: Why biological control? Why good bugs? By the way, the number of answers you get equals the number of people you ask. But if we go, for example, to this place, Southeast Israel, the Arava area above the Great Rift Valley, where the really top-notch -- the pearl of the Israeli agriculture is located, especially under greenhouse conditions, or under screenhouse, conditions -- if you drive all the way to a lot, you see this just in the middle of the desert. And if you zoom in, you can definitely watch this, grandparents with their grandchildren, distributing the natural enemies, the good bugs, instead of wearing special clothes and gas masks and applying chemicals. So safety, with respect to the application, this is the number one answer that we get from growers, why biological control.

Number two, many growers are in fact petrified from the idea of resistance, that the pests will become resistant to the chemicals, just in our case that diphtheria becomes resistant to antibiotics. It's the same, and it can happen very quickly. Fortunately, in either biological control, or even natural control, resistance is extremely rare. It hardly happens. Because this is evolution; this is the natural ratio, unlike resistance, which happens in the case of chemicals.

And thirdly, public demand. Public demand -- the more the public demands the reduction of chemicals, the more growers become aware of the fact they should, wherever they can and wherever possible, replace the chemical control with biological control. Even here, there is another grower, you see, very interested in the bugs, the bad ones and the good ones, wearing this magnifier already on her head, just walking safely in her crop.

Finally, I want to get actually to my vision, or, in fact, to my dream. Because, you see, this is the reality. Have a look at the gap. If we take the overall turnover of the biocontrol industry worldwide, it's 250 million dollars. And look at the overall pesticide industry in all the crops throughout the world. I think it's times 100 or something like that. 25 billion. So there is a huge gap to bridge. So actually, how can we do it? How can we bridge, or let's say narrow, this gap in the course of the years? First of all, we need to find more robust, good and reliable biological solutions, more good bugs that we can either mass-produce, or actually conserve in the field. Secondly, to create even more intensive and strict public demand to reduction of chemicals in the agricultural fresh produce. And thirdly, also to increase awareness by the growers to the potential of this industry. And this gap really narrows. Step by step, it does narrow.

So I think my last slide is: All we are saying, we can actually see it, give nature a chance. So I'm saying it on behalf of all the biocontrol petitioners and implementors, in Israel and abroad, really give nature a chance.

Thank you.

(Applause)
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