Latest news with #urbanpests
The Independent
29-05-2025
- General
- The Independent
Scientists identify key shift that led to huge rise in bedbugs
Bedbugs may have been interrupting human sleep for more than 50,000 years, but it was only when humans left caves and formed the first cities that their populations really boomed, according to a new study. The research, published in science journal Biology Letters, looked at the genetics of bedbugs and found that they split into two lineages thousands of years ago – one that stayed on bats, and one that targeted humans. By the Ice Age both populations were in general decline, with the bat-associated lineage never bouncing back, but the urban bedbugs recovered and began to thrive as human settlements expanded into cities. As humans built early cities, such as Mesopotamia, around 12,000 years ago and their populations started to boom, so too did the populations of the tiny parasitic insects feasting on human skin – making the species one of the first human pests. 'That makes sense because modern humans moved out of caves about 60,000 years ago,' said Warren Booth, the Joseph R. and Mary W. Wilson Urban Entomology associate professor. "There were bedbugs living in the caves with these humans, and when they moved out they took a subset of the population with them so there's less genetic diversity in that human-associated lineage." "What will be interesting is to look at what's happening in the last 100 to 120 years," Prof Booth told science website "Bed bugs were pretty common in the old world, but once DDT [dichloro-diphenyl-trichloroethane] was introduced for pest control, populations crashed. They were thought to have been essentially eradicated, but within five years they started reappearing and were resisting the pesticide." Bedbug infestations saw a dramatic 35 per cent jump between 2022 and 2024, while cockroach removal visits rose by 13 per cent over the same period.
The Independent
28-05-2025
- General
- The Independent
Bedbug numbers soared when humans left caves and moved to cities, scientists find
Bedbugs may have been interrupting human sleep for more than 50,000 years, but it was only when humans left caves and formed the first cities that their populations really boomed, according to a new study. The research, published in science journal Biology Letters, looked at the genetics of bedbugs and found that they split into two lineages thousands of years ago – one that stayed on bats, and one that targeted humans. By the Ice Age both populations were in general decline, with the bat-associated lineage never bouncing back, but the urban bedbugs recovered and began to thrive as human settlements expanded into cities. As humans built early cities, such as Mesopotamia, around 12,000 years ago and their populations started to boom, so too did the populations of the tiny parasitic insects feasting on human skin – making the species one of the first human pests. 'That makes sense because modern humans moved out of caves about 60,000 years ago,' said Warren Booth, the Joseph R. and Mary W. Wilson Urban Entomology associate professor. "There were bedbugs living in the caves with these humans, and when they moved out they took a subset of the population with them so there's less genetic diversity in that human-associated lineage." "What will be interesting is to look at what's happening in the last 100 to 120 years," Prof Booth told science website "Bed bugs were pretty common in the old world, but once DDT [dichloro-diphenyl-trichloroethane] was introduced for pest control, populations crashed. They were thought to have been essentially eradicated, but within five years they started reappearing and were resisting the pesticide." Bedbug infestations saw a dramatic 35 per cent jump between 2022 and 2024, while cockroach removal visits rose by 13 per cent over the same period.
The Guardian
27-05-2025
- General
- The Guardian
Humans moving to ancient cities sent bedbug numbers soaring, say scientists
They survived the catastrophe that wiped out the dinosaurs, but bedbugs were in decline until the invention of the city, which sent their numbers soaring, researchers say. Genetic analysis of a group of bedbugs showed their history was entwined with the human story, with the blood-sucking parasites spreading and thriving as humans crammed together in large settlements. Dr Warren Booth, an urban entomologist at Virginia Tech, said the intimate relationship between host and parasite fuelled a dramatic rise in the bedbug population around the time of the first cities, making bedbugs a contender for the first true urban pest insects. 'When we started to live in cities, we brought all these people together, and they all had their own bedbugs with them,' Booth said. 'And then, as civilisation spread across the world, the bugs spread with them to the point where they're now ubiquitous in human society.' The scientists compared the DNA of 19 bedbugs from the Czech Republic. Nine were 'associated with humans' while the rest were gathered from bat roosts. The analysis found that the ancestral populations behind both groups were in decline about 45,000 years ago, as the Earth cooled in the last glacial period. But while the estimated population of bat-related bedbugs continued to fall to the present day, the number of human-associated bedbugs levelled off about 12,000 years ago before a 'dramatic' rise about 8,000 years ago, the researchers write in Biology Letters. The world's first cities arose from settlements built after humans turned from a nomadic life to one dominated by agriculture. Çatalhöyük, in modern day Turkey, is about 9,000 years old and was home to thousands of people. About 5,000 years ago, Uruk in ancient Mesopotamia housed a population of 60,000. Bedbugs evolved more than 100m years ago and fed on the blood of an unknown host before parasitising bats and early humans. 'We know that the evolutionary history of humans and bedbugs has been intertwined for a long time,' said Prof Michael Siva-Jothy, an entomologist at the University of Sheffield. Sign up to Down to Earth The planet's most important stories. Get all the week's environment news - the good, the bad and the essential after newsletter promotion Siva-Jothy is wary about the new study's claims, coming from a small number of bedbugs in a single country, and wonders whether other common parasites might be worthy contenders for the title of first urban insect pest. Head lice arose more than 1 million years ago, for example, and have made humans scratch ever since.
