|
Vol. 230 No.12 |
|
|
| DAVID MICHAEL COHEN, MANAGING EDITOR |
Of Rasberry ants and Frankenslime
We tend to think about environmental threats exclusively in terms of dangers that arise as the result of human industry: toxic chemicals released in manufacturing, pesticide runoff from large-scale agriculture, and the biggest boogeyman of all, greenhouse gases from burning hydrocarbons. But it turns out that often the most destructive threats to the natural environment are themselves part of nature—i.e., invasive animal and plant species.
Residents of Houston, Texas, and surrounding areas are getting an object lesson in the destructive power of invasive species as the region is being overrun by an exotic species of ant that has come to be called the Rasberry crazy ant. (That’s not a typo; they’re named after Houston exterminator Tom Rasberry, who discovered them in 2002. They were given the name crazy because, rather than march in neat columns as their cousins do, these undisciplined insects like to wander around erratically.)
According to media reports, the ants are spreading like wildfire throughout the region. In the last year, they have been spotted as far as Louisiana and Mississippi.
Nobody’s exactly sure how the ants were introduced into the area, but it is generally thought that they arrived via a cargo ship in the port of Houston, possibly from the Caribbean, where similar species of crazy ants are known to exist.
At first glance, these critters might be considered a welcome addition to the Texas ecosystem. They rarely bite humans, they eat fire ants, and they are gradually displacing that stinging terror of the outdoors in the Houston area. However, they also damage plant life by protecting aphids from predators, and are fond of eating helpful insects such as ladybugs and honeybees. Given the Rasberry ants’ rapid spread, the latter could pose a serious ecological danger by preventing the pollination on which many plant species, and the agricultural community, depend.
Of more immediate concern is the insects’ penchant for nesting in and munching on electronic equipment. According to media reports, the ants have ruined pumps at a sewage facility, shorted out pipeline valves, caused fire alarms to malfunction, fouled computers and destroyed at least one homeowner’s gas meter. More ominously, they have infested the grounds of NASA’s Johnson Space Center and the area near Hobby Airport, where their snacking could have deadly repercussions.
Scientists and exterminators are at a loss as to how to eradicate this pest. Over-the-counter poisons have been ineffective, and even the stronger stuff used by professionals only keeps them away for a few weeks. Killing the queen doesn’t do the trick, either, since Rasberry ant colonies have multiple queens. Researchers are trying to find new ways to stop the ants, but their rapid spread has made this task extremely difficult.
“At this point, it would be nearly impossible to eradicate the ant because it is so widely dispersed,” said Texas A&M University entomologist Roger Gold in a May 2008 Associated Press story.
Thus, the Rasberry ant is likely to become a permanent feature of the US Gulf Coast, and only time will tell the scope and reach of their impact on the region’s ecosystems and human communities.
I bring up the Rasberry ant for two reasons. First, to illustrate that potentially large-scale ecological changes aren’t necessarily caused or preventable by human activity. Though there may be some hardcore Luddites who could find blame in this story, tiny ants stowing away in a cargo hold pretty much falls under the category of the unpreventable.
My second point is to warn of the extreme care that must be taken when dealing with potentially aggressive species. This advice seems especially timely for our industry, due to the massive investments that oil companies have made in the last year to develop algae-based biofuels. In July, ExxonMobil announced a $600 million project with biotech firm Synthetic Genomics to study methods to grow strains of algae from which large amounts of oil can be extracted for transportation fuel. The next month, BP announced a similar, $10 million collaboration with Martek Biosciences. Last month, StatoilHydro announced that it is investing $3 million to launch an algal biofuels research project with partners including the Smithsonian Institution and the University of Arkansas.
This new energy source holds enormous promise. Though it is still in its infancy, and may take as many as 10 years to become cost-competitive with petroleum-based fuels, the potential is enormous. According to a recent US Department of Energy paper on the subject, “Algal biofuels could provide sufficient fuel feedstock to meet the transportation needs of the entire United States, while being completely compatible with the existing transportation fuel infrastructure (refining, distribution and utilization).”
What’s more, algal biofuels would be clean, scalable and carbon neutral. And the slime could be selectively bred or genetically engineered to produce greater and greater amounts of oil while using smaller amounts of the only significant inputs: water, sunlight, carbon dioxide and, in some schemes, sugar.
This is where the danger lies. The strains of algae grown and manufactured for biofuels are inevitably going to be the most prolific and probably the hardiest. If even a small amount of this “Frankenslime” were introduced to, say, Lake Michigan, it could conceivably outcompete many other forms of aquatic life, having much farther-reaching consequences than the Rasberry crazy ant.
Containment options being considered for algal biofuels projects range from open ponds to closed bioreactors. The latter seems by far the better option, both from the perspective of preventing introduction into the environment and because it would allow optimization of conditions for growing and harvesting the algae. Additionally, steps should be taken to ensure that algae genetically engineered for biofuels cannot survive in the wild, such as designing them to be dependent on an enzyme or protein provided in the feedstock.
Such precautions may delay the commercialization of this new energy form, but given the enormous rewards that can be reaped from success and the huge potential ramifications of failure, it’s important to get this one right. 
|
