JERUSALEM, March 12 (Xinhua) -- Israeli researchers and their European partners have found that a species of microbats can protect crops and livestock by preying on harmful insect, Ben Gurion University (BGU) in southern Israel reported on Thursday.
The cotton huge industry is severely harmed worldwide by insects that prey upon crops, while massive use of pesticides is both harmful to the environment and expensive.
Thus, conservation biological control is an alternative and sustainable method that encourages natural enemies such as predators of insect pests.
The Israeli-led team investigated the feeding habits of Kuhl's pipistrelle, a small bat that roosts and forages in urban and agricultural habitats.
The findings, published in the journal Molecular Ecology, showed that the bat preyed on several different insects that threatened crops and livestock.
Among them is one of the most destructive pests of cotton crops, the pink bollworm, which can develop resistance to pesticides.
The team used DNA traces of prey found in the droppings of bats to identify which insects they ate and discovered that as the pink bollworm population increased, the bats hunted them more than other insects.
Furthermore, Kuhl's pipistrelle feeds on a range of other potential disease transmitters such as mosquitos or bothersome insects such as midges.
