GrainsWest Spring 2021

Spring 2021 grainswest.com 17 BY ELLEN COTTEE • PHOTOS BY ANTHONY HOULE PHOTOGRAPHY Entomologist wants to change the way farmers manage pests THE SECRET LIFE OF BUGS GrainsWest: Growing up, did you think you would become an entomologist? Boyd Mori: I didn’t. I originally was going toward the medical field, but was inspired by a professor to look into entomology. Insects themselves are so diverse, and so is the study of insects. A lot of people think of insects as pests and the only jobs involv- ing insects as pest management or control, but there are so many fields you can work in when it comes to entomology. We have agriculture, of course, but there’s medical entomology, conserva- tion and more. GW: You head up the faculty of Agricultural, Life and Environmental Sciences’ Agricultural and Ecological Entomology Group. What is the aim of this group? BM: I have a fairly big group—six grad students, three at the PhD level and three at the master’s level. I also have two post-docs and a part-time technician as part of the group. All of our work focuses on and revolves around integrated pest management through various methods, whether it’s prevention or treatment of pest issues. One of the major projects we’re working on is trying to find out more information about the role of generalist predators like F rom weevils to midges, beetles to spiders, professor and entomologist Boyd Mori examines the secret life of bugs. He leads a team of researchers with the University of Alberta’s Agricultural and Ecological Entomology Group. Focused on integrated pest management, the team analyzes the inner workings of insect ecosystems. This burgeoning area of study focuses on the battles between pests and beneficial insects within agriculture. ground beetles and spiders in our agricultural system and the impact they’re having on pest species. There has been other work on generalist insects across the Prairies, and we’re digging down into that with newer, more intense technology. GW: How is this research being done? BM: The main approach is molecular content analysis. We can take, for example, a beetle from the field, extract the DNA in the beetle and determine what species are in its gut and, therefore, what it’s been eating in the field. We’re going to see if they’re eat- ing pests, weeds or seeds, or if they’re just eating neutral insects like worms that have no real effect on the crop. If they’re consum- ing pests, we can look at how producers can make a beneficial environment to conserve or promote these insects to be a part of pest management. GW: How is this approach different from previous research in the field? BM: In the past, researchers have used a very targeted ap- proach. Is this ground beetle eating wheat midge? And that’s all they’d look at. We’re going to do some of that, but on a broader scale. If we find a beetle, like a flea beetle in a canola crop,