Know about biological fencing designed as barriers to target some specific organisms without restricting other plants and animals from moving in the ecosystem
Learn about the advantages of biological fencing designed as barriers for specific...
© MinuteEarth (A Britannica Publishing Partner)
Transcript
Fencing animals in or out really isn't our forte. Tiny flies zoom right through screens meant to keep them out. Mice find itty-bitty cracks in our walls, an average of five crafty creatures escape from American zoos each year, and wascally wabbits proved that Australia's rabbit-proof fence wasn't. If we looked at these fences from a fly's or a rabbit's perspective, we might have realized that these barriers weren't barriers at all, but our human-centric view of the world makes it hard to put ourselves in another animal's shoes or paws or wings or exoskeleton?
And that's precisely the trick to building a critter-proof fence-- knowing the critter well enough to find a simple way to stop it. In East Africa, for example, farmers are building beehive fences to keep out crop-raiding elephants. Nothing, it turns out, makes these five-ton behemoths turn and run faster than a buzzing bee. Nobody likes a bee in their nose, and elephants have the biggest noses.
Nobody likes pee in their nose, either, especially when you're a wolf and it's pee from a rival pack. So to keep wolves from wolfing down ranchers' sheep, scientists in Idaho are sprinkling the ground with pee and poop from other wolf packs, creating biological borders whose smelly signal tells wolves that the territory is already taken.
We've even figured out how to fence out some invisible invaders, like the virus that was decimating Hawaiian papaya crops in the 1990s. Scientists first genetically modified some papaya plants so they were immune to the virus. These disease-resistant papaya were then planted as a live fence around the non-genetically modified papaya, keeping the fruit virus- and controversy-free.
The beauty of these biologically inspired fences is that they target specific species without restricting the comings and goings of other plants and animals in the ecosystem. It's all about knowing your target's biological kryptonite. Maybe that's why they say knowledge is the best defense.
And that's precisely the trick to building a critter-proof fence-- knowing the critter well enough to find a simple way to stop it. In East Africa, for example, farmers are building beehive fences to keep out crop-raiding elephants. Nothing, it turns out, makes these five-ton behemoths turn and run faster than a buzzing bee. Nobody likes a bee in their nose, and elephants have the biggest noses.
Nobody likes pee in their nose, either, especially when you're a wolf and it's pee from a rival pack. So to keep wolves from wolfing down ranchers' sheep, scientists in Idaho are sprinkling the ground with pee and poop from other wolf packs, creating biological borders whose smelly signal tells wolves that the territory is already taken.
We've even figured out how to fence out some invisible invaders, like the virus that was decimating Hawaiian papaya crops in the 1990s. Scientists first genetically modified some papaya plants so they were immune to the virus. These disease-resistant papaya were then planted as a live fence around the non-genetically modified papaya, keeping the fruit virus- and controversy-free.
The beauty of these biologically inspired fences is that they target specific species without restricting the comings and goings of other plants and animals in the ecosystem. It's all about knowing your target's biological kryptonite. Maybe that's why they say knowledge is the best defense.