Ladybug, where have you gone? Aphid fighters tend to roam
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July 11, 2018
To some casual observers, ladybugs (or lady beetles) are colorful symbols of good luck — harbingers of fortune and fame. Gardeners value them for their utility as ravenous insects that prey upon plant pests. They buy them by the hundreds online or from garden centers, and then free them to hunt.
But many entomologists believe that commercially sold ladybugs are inefficient for biological pest control, and introduce disease-carrying pathogens to their wild counterparts. They also fear that field-gathering the dormant insects by the millions shrinks the population available to farmers, prom...
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