Mravi i humano rješenje

Objavljeno u Priroda zna bolje!

O mravima i vrstama mrava, uz opis njihovih uloga i kako njih riješiti, ako treba, na human način

Mravi i humano rješenje kookabee, design by Melita Kukac

MRAVI: Prijatelji ili štetočine?

Na svijetu je nevjerojatan broj mrava, raznih vrsta s različitim karakteristikama. Članovi su porodice Formicidae, te potičući iz reda Hymenoptera (opnokrilci) srodni su pčelama i osama. Žive u vrlo organiziranim kolonijama, u mnogim potpuno različitim uvjetima, no pravo mjesto za mrave je na otvorenom. Tamo rade svoja gnijezda pod zemljom ili na drugim odabranim sigurnim mjestima kako bi skladištili hranu i osigurali prostor za razmnožavanje kraljica.

Mravi kao pomagači:

- mravi održavaju okoliš čistim razgrađujući organski otpad, insekte i mrtve životinje

- mnogi mravi sakupljaju i koriste otpad od lišća

- mravi stolari ubrzavaju razgradnju mrtvog i bolesnog drveta

- mravi poboljšavaju drenažu tla: okretanjem i prozračivanjem tla omogućuju da voda i kisik dopru do korijena biljaka; također donose kamenčiće i druge čestice do vrha tla

- mravi poboljšavaju i kemiju tla unoseći svoje zalihe hrane, obogaćujući tlo hranom i izlučevinama; posebno tako povećavaju dušik i fosfor, čime ostavljaju za sobom tlo koje je više-manje pH neutralno

- mnogi mravi raspršuju sjeme na mjesta gdje mogu cvjetati: čuvaju sjeme prenoseći ga u sigurnija staništa bogata hranjivim tvarima gdje su zaštićeni od žderača sjemenja, suše i požara; ljudi mogu sakupljati ta spremišta sjemena kada je to potrebno

- neki mravi štite biljke koje proizvode poseban nektar od drugih insekata koji bi im mogli naštetiti.

- mravi love insekte štetočine i njihova jajašca – uključujući druge mrave, krpelje, termite, škorpione i smrdibube

- mravi tkalci koriste se kao biološka kontrola u uzgoju citrusa, posebno u Kini

- vatreni mravi suzbijaju štetnike na obrađenim poljima

- šumski mravi pomažu u suzbijanju potkornjaka i gusjenica

- u rijetkim slučajevima mravi mogu biti oprašivači, na primjer nekih orhideja

- u nekim dijelovima svijeta ljudi jedu određene vrste mrava

- u nekim se zemljama veliki mravi, kao što su vojnički mravi, koriste umjesto šavova nakon operacija

Mravi kao štetočine
- neki mravi grizu, što može uzrokovati razne reakcije od blage iritacije do ozbiljne alergije, ovisno o vrsti mrava
- neki mravi štite biljne uši i brašnaste stjenice kako bi si osigurali izvor visokoenergetskog cvjetnog meda: zaštićene brašnaste stjenice mogu uzrokovati probleme u uzgoju voća, osobito ananasa

- mravi mogu biti štetni ako se odluče ugnijezditi u zgradi ili nečijem domu

Prirodni predatori

- djetlići i druge ptice koje se hrane kukcima

- određene vrste žaba

- muhe

- određene gljive

- neke gusjenice

- mravojedi, ljuskavci, ješci i numbati

- smeđi medvjedi, koji prvenstveno jedu ličinke i kukuljice mrava stolara

Prirodna sredstva protiv mrava

Higijena je naravno ključna. Kako bi ste spriječili ulazak mrava u dom ili ih istjerali, možete pomiješati bijeli ocat pola-pola s vodom i njime oribati sve površine na kojima su se mravi pojavili.

Mirisi bijelog octa i raznih eteričnih ulja poput paprene metvice, ulja čajevca, ulja cimeta ili ulja nima, učinkovita su sredstva protiv mrava. Vlastiti sprej možete napraviti tako da napunite špricaljku s vodom i dodate žličicu-dvije odabrane tvari te poprskate oko mjesta kuda su mravi ušli. Alternativno, možete namočiti štapiće od vate u sredstvo i postaviti ih oko najezde mrava. NAPOMENA: imajte na umu da su mnoga eterična ulja, posebice ulje paprene metvice i čajevca, otrovna za kućne ljubimce, pa osigurajte da oni ne dođu u kontakt s tim tvarima.

Ostale metode uključuju posipanje taloga kave, papra, kajenskog papra ili cimeta u prahu po putevima mrava ili postavljanje kore citrusa oko njih.

NAPOMENA: Ne preporučujemo ubijanje mrava.

Međutim, za one koje to ipak žele, prirodni insekticidi uključuju boraks, bornu kiselinu, kukuruzno brašno i kremenu zemlju.

NAPOMENA: kremena ili dijatomejska zemlja povezuje se s kožnim alergijskim reakcijama i problemima s plućima kod ljudi.

NADA KOZULIĆ: JEDNO OSOBNO ISKUSTVO

Kako riješiti mrave koji su ušli u prostor bez otrova i bez ubijanja.

Mravi su vrlo korisna stvorenja, ali ne u našoj kući ili stanu. A kad nam „usele“ u stambeni prostor, počinje ogorčena borba kako ih se riješiti, pogotovo ako ne želite ni mrave, a posredno ni sebe, trovati raznim otrovima.

Pred nekoliko godina mravi iz zemlje odlučili se smjestiti u dnu ulaznih vrata, čak su pojeli jedan dio gdje su smjestili maticu i njena jaja. Probala sam različita sredstva (osim otrova) da ih otjeram i da ih usmjerim drugamo, gdje bi stvorili novo stanište.

Na kraju pokušala sam ih se riješiti jednostavnim sredstvom koje ima svatko u kući – alkoholnim octom. Čim su osjetili miris octa počeli su bježati, dobro sam prskala  octom tu „cestu“ kojom su se kretali kao i njihovo stanište. Ponovila sam to idućih 2 – 3 dana i cijelo ljeto bila mirna.

Sljedeće godine, sredinom lipnja opet sam vidjela da su krenuli prema starom staništu, ponovila sam tretman alkoholnim octom i rezultat je bio isti, mravi su nestali. Još sam posipala prahom buhača, za svaki slučaj. Mravi su otišli negdje drugdje gdje ne smetaju.

Informacije sastavili Nada Kozulić, Nicholas Haas i Vivian Grisogono, 2022.

Prijevod: Josip Vlainić

 

Nalazite se ovdje: Home vaša pisma Priroda zna bolje! Mravi i humano rješenje

Novosti: Ekologija.hr

  • Golf clubs, private schools and car washes may face tighter rules from water companies as England’s drought continues

    Three water companies are seeking to impose severe restrictions on businesses as the drought continues across most of England, putting rivers and wildlife under huge pressure.

    Golf clubs and private schools could be barred from using mains water to irrigate playing fields and courses, and commercial car washes stopped from operating, under “non-essential use bans” being sought by the companies.

    Continue reading...

  • Declining stocks and increased fishing pressure have led to lower sustainability ratings for two popular cod alternatives

    UK shoppers have previously been urged to avoid UK-caught cod and to buy European hake or coley instead – but now these fish are in trouble, too.

    The Marine Conservation Society (MCS), an environmental charity, publishes its Good Fish Guide to help consumers and businesses make sustainable seafood choices. It uses a traffic-light system to rate seafood according to the health of fish stocks and environmental impact.

    Continue reading...

  • Citizen scientists on UK Pollinator Monitoring Scheme recorded insect visits to flowers during 10-minute surveys

    Ubiquitous urban plants often derided as “weeds” are the most attractive to pollinating insects.

    The autumn blooms of common ivy, rich in pollen and nectar, are the most visited by insects including bees and butterflies, according to an eight-year study.

    Continue reading...

  • A selection of the winning images from this year’s competition across topics ranging from underwater to urban wildlife, and photojournalism to mammal behaviour. The overall winner is Federico Veronesi of Italy for his powerful image of an elephant carrying a dead calf

    Continue reading...

  • Despite their size and gentle appearance, puffins will fight to keep their catch of sand eels from an opportunistic gull

    Few birds are as paradoxical as the puffin. It rivals the robin as Britain’s best-loved bird, yet most people have never seen one in the flesh. In spring and summer, they gather in large, noisy colonies to breed, but spend the autumn and winter far out to sea in the North Atlantic. And despite their small size, and gentle, clown-like appearance, puffins will fight to save their precious catch of sand eels from being seized by an opportunistic – and much larger – skua or gull.

    Puffins, like penguins, have a very human quality, too. When the late Bill Oddie and I filmed puffins at a colony on Shetland, he memorably described them as “looking like old men in dinner jackets, waiting to go into supper at the club”, while the bird’s scientific name, Fratercula arctica, translates as “little brother of the Arctic”.

    Continue reading...

  • High-speed video captures a previously unknown process that lets a honeybee’s two-millimetre stinger pump venom even after detaching from the insect’s body. Using a clear gel that mimics human skin as a target, researchers from Macquarie University detached the stingers and then filmed them in action pumping venom

    Continue reading...

  • River Lagan, Belfast: Right now you can see winter in the black-headed gull plumage, and spring in the mallards’. Yet feathers are also vital to how birds even came to exist

    On my walk along the towpath, I pick up a small grey feather. It’s a flight feather, probably from the wing of a feral pigeon. I stroke it absently as I watch the birds that are swimming on the river’s surface. Steeped in autumn sunshine, the different species are also feathered with other seasons. Summer is in the fuzzy down of a late-hatched moorhen chick. Winter gleams in the white heads of the “black-headed” gulls. And, while a mallard’s emerald-green head is, as yet, tatty as old velvet, his crisply curled drake’s tails herald the coming spring.

    If the story of birds is told in their plumage, then moult – the shedding and regrowth of feathers – is the turn of a page. The moorhen chick reminds me that the first chapter is about keeping warm. I tuck a strand of hair behind my ear, almost tucking the pigeon feather in as well. While our hair and birds’ feathersare both made of keratin, they differ in how they grow. In essence, hair extends as a single linear thread, whereas down feathers emerge frothing in all directions. As a fledgling matures, its outer feathers then lengthen, with a central shaft supporting branches that can flatten out and zip together to make a smooth surface.

    Continue reading...

  • Cultivating the nutritious bugs means families can raise livestock and enrich their own food, while lowering pressures on the land

    A few minutes’ walk from his home in the Kyaka II refugee settlement, Kanane Bikanyale feeds black soldier fly larvae to chickens in a coop above a fishpond. The larvae disappear in a scrum of chickens. Nearby, more larvae grow in modified jerrycans, while adult flies are kept in netted boxes.

    Bikanyale kept chickens before he fled to Uganda from the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). But the cost of conventional feed and shortages of ingredients made them increasingly difficult to raise – a widespread pressure for millions of smallholder farmers whose margins are tight.

    Kanane Bikanyale tends to his black soldier fly larvae in a rearing unit in the Kyaka II refugee camp in Uganda

    Continue reading...

  • At Bybi in Copenhagen, a dedicated group of staff and volunteers have built a community for all centred on the production of honey – much of which is given away for nothing. Could it be replicated elsewhere?

    The bees at Bybi, a collective of beekeepers in Copenhagen, live on the roof. Their home is a complex of Victorian buildings, right in the centre of the city, that looks like an idealised vision of the modern social enterprise, ennobled by the architecture of the past. It’s a place of cottage industry in concert with nature, where the marginalised are brought in from the fringes and corporations stand waiting to help, where jobs happen but a lot of the work is done by volunteers, and where – this bit is important – a lot of time is spent discussing ideas.

    Oliver Maxwell, Bybi’s 48-year-old founder, encourages me to examine the buildings more closely. They were once a prison, a workhouse and a hospital; their functions today – a homeless shelter, a young offender institution and, until recently, a job centre – are not so different. Denmark’s Victorian transformation, from “agricultural backwater to industrialised agriculture”, was reflected in how they treated people, Maxwell says.

    Continue reading...

  • Should you look for French seams or overlocking? Is dry-clean only a red flag? And how do you spot quality when shopping online? We asked the pros

    • How to make your leather last a lifetime

    Take a look at the outfit you’re wearing now: how many times have you worn each item? And how long have you had them? Just over 10 years ago, Eco-Age founder Livia Firth and journalist Lucy Siegle launched the 30 wears challenge to encourage people to buy clothes they would wear at least 30 times.

    The 30 wears challenge is a great concept. As a journalist interested in sustainable fashion, I’ve enjoyed applying this rule for years and found the goal can often be surpassed, but with one proviso: clothing must be chosen carefully. The goal is only realistic if garments are of good enough quality to stand up to repeated wear. So, how do you know if your clothes really are well made? Does it mean you have to spend a fortune on them? Do you need to know the difference between a French seam and an overlock seam? And how can we judge clothing quality before buying if we are, like 37% of Britons, getting most of our clothes online? I spoke to experts to find out.

    Continue reading...

Novosti: Cybermed.hr

Novosti: Biologija.com