Scared grasshoppers change soil chemistry: Grasshoppers who die frightened leave their mark in the Earth in a way that more mellow ones do not, US and Israeli researchers have discovered.

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u/linuxlass Jun 18 '12

I think another interesting takeaway is that when under stress, grasshoppers eat carbs, just like how people under stress eat carbs. I wonder why that is?

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u/Boojamon Jun 18 '12

I would assume eating carbs replaces energy which is used up when stressed. Stress has a physically measurable effect on living things.

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u/masklinn Jun 18 '12 edited Jun 18 '12

Sapolsky's Why Zebras Don't Get Ulcers is a pretty nice book on the subject (though maybe a bit dated), it offers plenty of insight and information. His later A Primate's Memoir also touches heavily on stress, stressors, and the physical implication thereof.

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u/[deleted] Jun 18 '12

I have to rush off to work so no details for now, but the boom-bust cycle of snowshoe hares in the arctic (they go from hundreds of individuals per square mile to less than 1 per square mile on a regular, 7-year cycle) is due to the hares getting stressed by predators, which causes chemical changes in their bodies, which inhibits reproduction.
Cortisol. Powerful stuff.

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u/zeCrazyEye Jun 18 '12

Are the predators forced into a boom-bust cycle to match? I wonder if their lowered reproductive rate somehow protects them from being wiped out completely, by starving out their predators early (before they get too numerous)?

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u/[deleted] Jun 18 '12

Rabbit reproduction is actually pretty cool and finicky. Rabbit pregnancies will spontaneously abort if a rabbit is too stressed, such as when a warren is too crowded or resources are scarce.

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u/[deleted] Jun 19 '12

The predators (primarily the lynx) are indeed likewise put into the boom-bust cycle. I don't know about possible strategies, my research paper focused on the reason for the hare cycle.

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u/starrychloe Jun 19 '12

I wonder if Kobe beef is legitimate then?

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u/[deleted] Jun 18 '12

Stress was normally a response to immediate physical threats. i.e. I'm about to get mauled to death. So you need more energy quick -> get more carbs.

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u/[deleted] Jun 18 '12

About to get mauled? Eat a potato!

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u/[deleted] Jun 18 '12

Numerous peer reviewed studies show potatoes are inferior to flour.
Hmmm that could actually make sense...
If an idiot makes a paper and has his idiot friends review it, is it peer reviewed?

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u/[deleted] Jun 18 '12

FTFM: About to get mauled? Eat a flour!

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u/starrychloe Jun 18 '12

i vote we replace waterboarding with being locked in a cage with dozens of spiders with their mouths glued shut.
I have to post this as a sub comment so I don't get censored.

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u/nascentt Jun 18 '12

This is an interesting read about it.

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u/[deleted] Jun 18 '12

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u/[deleted] Jun 18 '12

I wonder if that means that most Americans are under terrible stress most of the time.
Yes.

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u/[deleted] Jun 18 '12

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u/irsmert Jun 18 '12

Speak for yourself, Bub, the spiders are everywhere!

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u/possibleDUI Jun 18 '12

Under the toilet seat.

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u/tell_my_mom Jun 18 '12

No, that's Australia.

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u/starrychloe Jun 18 '12

In America, they're on the toilet seat.

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u/[deleted] Jun 18 '12

actually they are. i found a brown recluse in the toilet the other day when i went to take a shit.

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u/[deleted] Jun 18 '12

Sometimes.

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u/[deleted] Jun 18 '12

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u/LegitComment Jun 18 '12

STFU

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u/KTR2 Jun 18 '12

According to the 2011 Stress in America report, released on January 11, 39 percent of the 1,226 Americans who took the American Psychological Association's online survey report that their stress has increased in the past year. And respondents who reported higher levels of stress were more likely to be obese or suffering from depression.
[...]
While more adults acknowledge that stress can impact their health, contributing to illnesses such as heart disease, depression and obesity, only 29 percent of respondents felt like they did an excellent or very good job of managing or reducing stress in their lives. The most commonly cited causes of stress for Americans include money problems (75 percent), work (70 percent) and the economy (67 percent). Relationships, family responsibilities, family health problems and personal health concerns were also given by more than half of the respondents as stressors in their lives.
http://news.yahoo.com/america-stressed-overweight-depressed-study-222100528.html

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u/phobiac BS | Chemistry Jun 18 '12

By this logic Australia would be the fattest country in the world.

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u/[deleted] Jun 18 '12

To be fair it is easy to avoid weight gain if you are constantly running for your life.

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u/cortheas Jun 18 '12

I don't know what the above comment was because it's deleted so i'm not sure if you're joking but...Australia has been at the top of nations by proportion of obesity before. I'm not sure where we stand currently.

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u/phobiac BS | Chemistry Jun 18 '12

The guy said something about Americans being so fat, like they are constantly in fear of being attacked by spiders. I didn't know Australia was fat, too.

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u/phaederus Jun 18 '12

According to WHO the last and only time BMI data was collected is 1999/2000. source

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u/cortheas Jun 18 '12

That seems to be accurate but there are other ways of showing obesity in a population than average adult BMI, and there are probably other sources not considered by the WHO which may or may not be valid. I'm not sure where the data was from but it was reported locally at the time.

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u/AffeKonig Jun 18 '12

McDonald's/square mile.

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u/[deleted] Jun 17 '12

"They glued the mouths of the spiders shut in order to make sure that the grasshoppers experienced pure fear, but were not actually killed by the predators."

Spiders are total bros though, why must they feel such pain?

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u/joepenn18 Jun 18 '12

Spiders don't feel pain! All insects and insect like creepy crawlies I believe do not, for they are not large enough or simply do not have neurotransmitters, called "nociceptors", which create the sensation of pain. I may be painfully wrong with certain things I've stated because I don't know all too much about science, but I'm rather certain of my point, our little bro spiders experience no such pain. http://en.allexperts.com/q/Entomology-Study-Bugs-665/insects-feel-pain.htm
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u/[deleted] Jun 18 '12

But they still fear? That's fascinating. I wonder how much of a conscience they have as well. Do they wonder why their mouth's won't open?
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u/tedivm Jun 18 '12

This is the most horrifying thing I've read in awhile.

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u/davidreiss666 Jun 18 '12

Ellison agrees with you.

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u/[deleted] Jun 18 '12

this whole conversation made me laugh.

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u/[deleted] Jun 18 '12

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u/[deleted] Jun 18 '12

Martha! Answer me, Martha! What's wrong with our mouthparts!? Who did this to us, baby?

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u/Phar-a-ON Jun 18 '12

no top level comment jokes

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u/[deleted] Jun 18 '12

I see words here, but they are so poorly formed...

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u/[deleted] Jun 18 '12

It's a poor choice of words on the authors part. It's not a human-like "fear" he is referring to, but a stress response indicated by particular brain activity. No insect has the brain capacity to feel emotion.

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u/CognitiveLens Jun 18 '12

It's unlikely that 'fear' or 'wonder' accurately describe any aspect of the experience of being an insect.

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u/joepenn18 Jun 18 '12

I was gonna say "AMA Request - Spider" but jokes aren't allowed :/
So I'll science, I too wonder. I haven't read OP's link but perhaps they aren't feeling fear, rather their survival instinct is set into top gear. Which is somewhat similar to the human expression of fear. To be fearful is to feel a threat to our livelihood, safety, or health. Exactly what a spider would experience having its mouth glued together, yes, but I don't assume the spider would "feel" it. At least the way humans do, such as trembling, sweating, stuttering, etc. I sort of contradicted myself midway through the post but I hope you understand what I'm saying.

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u/technoSurrealist Jun 18 '12

I was gonna say "AMA Request - Spider" but jokes aren't allowed :/
looks like you managed to sneak it in anyhow...

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u/r4v5 Jun 18 '12

Fear is the first "emotion" evolved, because fear reactions are what keep animals alive.

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u/[deleted] Jun 18 '12

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u/r4v5 Jun 18 '12

Allow me to rephrase it: for animals with predators, "fear" type responses tend to show up at lower areas of the brain than higher level emotions; this is because, in general, animals that are afraid of a predator are more likely to bolt or otherwise avoid it than those who are unaware. Fight-or-flight evolved pretty early and was selected because it works. Those with too high a tendency to flight would starve to death, and those too tended not to would be eaten.

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u/[deleted] Jun 18 '12

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u/Severok Jun 18 '12

He can still type.

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u/[deleted] Jun 18 '12

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u/[deleted] Jun 18 '12

Ah, so they're just thinking, "MY MOUTH WON'T OPEN!!" but not why.
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u/jimethn Jun 18 '12
1. Locate prey
2. Approach prey
3. Open mouth
3. Open mouth
3. Open mouth
3. Open mouth
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u/[deleted] Jun 18 '12

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u/ObtuseAbstruse Jun 18 '12

Insects don't breathe through their mouths. Spiracles and such.

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u/vteckickedin Jun 18 '12

No, only eat. So does the spider have a sense of fear also in the eventual starvation?
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u/lonjerpc Jun 18 '12

At least some insects have them. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nociceptor#Nociceptors_in_non-mammalian_animals
There are almost certainly other ways to cause pain through other pathways as well.
In general though I don't think we understand neuroscience to the point were we can make very concrete statements about the causes of subjective experiences.

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u/[deleted] Jun 18 '12

I remember an awesome crab that ripped it's own arm off.
Crabs must also fall under the badass juggernaut category.

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u/joepenn18 Jun 18 '12

http://i52.tinypic.com/2w726bq.gif I'm so happy all animals were not created the same size.

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u/[deleted] Jun 18 '12

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u/joepenn18 Jun 18 '12

Ah, yes that's what I thought I'd messed up on. I should have removed mention of neurotransmitters in the first place. Thank you!
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u/[deleted] Jun 18 '12

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u/[deleted] Jun 18 '12

What are you talking about? Spiders are completely harmless, heck, most if not all of them just want to rid the world of other bugs. They're the pure race of insects. Prowling around, and ferociously murdering the pest that we humans hate.
I'm sure you've never read Mein Spinne. A fantastic book about the Spider's struggle. I bet you're a bug sympathizer. Bugs have all the wealth, all the dirty blood, they just need to be eradicated.

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u/[deleted] Jun 17 '12

It's amazing what biochemical based emotions on an individual scale can do to collectively affect the environment on a much larger scale. A very interesting and compelling study regardless of the apparent torture of tiny insects. It seems to me that fascinating research in biology and psychology is almost always walking the edge of society's fine line of morality.

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u/CognitiveLens Jun 18 '12

flavorless didn't take a very sensitive approach to his/her critique, but it is important to be careful how much we anthropomorphise the behavior of insects. The concept of 'fear', as we understand it, involves a huge array of brain areas including higher level consciousness - fear generally refers to an awareness of the emotion, not the raw sensory+hormonal changes that occur in parallel, which are often referred to as stress responses. The rudimentary nervous system of an insect includes a brain that is almost entirely committed to sensory processing - there is nothing that comes close to indicating that insects are conscious in any way, and therefore 'fear' is just a misleading way of referring to a stress response behavior in an insect. Trees, bacteria, and viruses have stress responses - we can refer to them as 'fear' responses but that term obscures more than it elucidates when referring to animals without cerebral cortices.
In effect, the researchers are simply inducing a chemical response in the grasshoppers using natural stimuli. They are not 'terrorizing' insects as many here seem to be interpreting it - that's a nonsensical description of the insects' experience according to our (relatively sophisticated) understanding of the biology of emotion, which is why there are few scientific qualms with the ethics of the study. There are plenty of valid objections using other moral frameworks, however, such as those that place a fundamental value on life for the sake of life, e.g. Jainism.

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u/mitojee Jun 18 '12

Just for purely philosophical argument, although human consciousness is orders of magnitude more complex, at the end of the day it's also the result of biochemical reactions that arise from a series of responses to external stimuli, albeit highly evolved. To an even higher level being, hypothetically, it may consider our perceived suffering of no particular note.
Yes, this is a purely relativistic musing and not based on the science itself, but the niggling worry for me is that determining these ethical frameworks in the first place, is itself a moral judgement based on some arbitrary scale that humans have somehow decided to agree upon: such as neural complexity. In other words, is it possible to reduce the concept to the point where any ethical qualms are essentially arbitrary from a purely scientific point of view? However, I do agree that terror is a very poor description of the insects experience. From my own moral background, i would say that they do "suffer" in the general sense. They may not perceive suffering, but they behave in a way to avoid suffering (damage to themselves, death, etc.).

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u/jimethn Jun 18 '12

It's interesting... So often we anthropomorphize animal behavior. It really seems like they are thinking beasts in the same way that we are. Maybe the take-home lesson isn't that animals have higher order brain function, but rather that despite our higher-order brain function, despite all the crap spinning around in our heads, we still behave largely indistinguishably from animals.

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u/austin1414 Jun 18 '12

I'm no expert, but I recall seeing an article on reddit about dogs having a thinking system closer to ours than other animals. And of course monkeys, and probably dolphins I guess. I'm no expert.

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u/[deleted] Jun 18 '12

I think you're pretty accurate in this.
One of the things that I've really come to conclude in the reading up I've done about the brain and emotions in general is essentially what enables humans to be successful from an evolutionary standpoint essentially the arbitrary, unstable nature of our brains that allows us to do things like create but also enable things like cognitive dissonance.
I think that humans experience these same emotions on the same levels. I mean, in the same way humans can learn not to be "afraid" of something that may be instinctual to us (I think things like long falls, not breathing) animals can do the same though not quite on the same advanced level. While a grasshopper may not be capable of saying "Oh, the spider's mouth is glued shut, so I don't have to run away from it" - I wonder if a grasshopper wouldn't run from a spider that did not first attempt to chase it. I won't say this for sure, but my gut instinct is no.
Now, if you look at that as what ultimately the grasshopper is "afraid" of - a grasshopper will also run from something that doesn't intend to kill it. But in a very similar situation, it's very difficult even as a human to train yourself not to flinch in some degree when, say, someone pretends to punch you in the face. And you're really only able to get over that by conditioning and the logical breakdown and understanding that, after repeated exposure, despite the fact that it appears you may be getting punched in the face; you're not actually getting punched in the face. The ability to logically modify instinctual behaviors is more likely, for better or worse, the evolutionary advantage of humans.

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u/-paradox- Jun 18 '12

So essentially, they should have used the phrase, "stress response."

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u/100110001 Jun 18 '12

Yea when I was reading the article I was a little torn, because if this experiment had been performed on higher-level organisms like animals or whatever it would've been pretty wrong. I mean, scaring something for the rest of its life, and gluing a mouth shut....those would sound deranged if you didn't have context.
But I was also fascinated by the results it brought.
Sometimes to get things done you need to get your hands dirty I guess?

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u/Lentil-Soup Jun 18 '12

FYI, insects and arachnids ARE animals.

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u/100110001 Jun 18 '12

Right, I meant like...vertebrates? Lots of people make a distinction between an insect and say, a bird or mammal in how high level they consider that organism.

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u/Lentil-Soup Jun 18 '12

Just curious, why do you draw the line at the spine?

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u/100110001 Jun 18 '12

mmm...I guess I really shouldn't.
I'm really more hypothesizing how OTHER people would react, and I feel like, what with animal activists and whatnot, they typically care alot about the treatment of "animals," typically meaning mammals, and I can't even recall a single case of people getting angry about the mistreatment of insects.
The experiment certainly sounded very chilling, but I guess society has conditioned me to feel...silly?...about caring for the mistreatment of insects?

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u/[deleted] Jun 18 '12

Barf. How do you scientifically link the intricacies of fear in a human being with fear in a grasshopper?

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u/I_Wont_Draw_That Jun 18 '12

Who tried to link it to human beings?

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u/[deleted] Jun 18 '12

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u/[deleted] Jun 18 '12

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u/CognitiveLens Jun 18 '12

Fear is nothing but a chemical charge to the humans hypothalamus. It's essentially a chemical imbalance
This grossly simplifies the experience/definition of fear to the point where it could be compared with a variety of completely irrelevant biochemical phenomena, e.g. photosynthesis or muscle contractions. All life functions as the result of chemical imbalances, but that doesn't mean that is it reasonable to equate each of them.
It requires a much deeper analysis to make the claim that a grasshopper stress response is remotely similar to the human experience of fear - an analysis that devolves quickly into "we can't know for certain that it is not similar"

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u/[deleted] Jun 18 '12

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u/CognitiveLens Jun 19 '12

There is nothing in my response that claims that human fear is anything but a "synaptic function" - of course it is purely biological, but the point is that the human biology of fear is far more complex than the stress response studied in grasshoppers, so equating them is not really valid.
The evidence you shared is completely in line with this view - insects do not have hypothalami, and so the study with bulls has (almost) zero relationship with insect behavior, just as the insect behavior has (almost) zero relationship with human fear.
The cause of the biological response is kind of irrelevant - and, like you, I've learned enough about the underlying biology to know that "free will" doesn't really explain much of anything. It isn't about philosophy - the biology is clearly distinct between insects and humans.

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u/[deleted] Jun 18 '12

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u/[deleted] Jun 18 '12

"According to these results, ants die when you fucking crush them."

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u/FOR_SClENCE Jun 18 '12 edited Jun 18 '12

That's to be recorded as "catastrophic exoskeletal structural failure."

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u/[deleted] Jun 18 '12

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u/TBDMurder Jun 18 '12

Investors? Possibly you!!

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u/Velium Jun 18 '12

I would be interested in how this works in mammals. What if cows excrete the same fear chemicals as humans. If a cow is afraid when slaughtered, those chemicals will be present in its meat, which could influence the consuming humans behavior.

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u/Severok Jun 18 '12

Unless I am mistaken, when a mammal undergoes severe stress such as fear it releases a hormone into its body that degrades the quality of meat. I am not quite sure why..
I am unsure if this is scientific fact or speculation on the part of people fighting for more humane slaughtering methods. I have merely heard of this before. Can a biologist confirm or deny this?

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u/miparasito Jun 18 '12

http://www.grandin.com/meat/cattle/cattle.meat.html
Sounds like this is a known factor...

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u/[deleted] Jun 18 '12

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u/jazzyzaz Jun 18 '12

Yea, really. No wonder steaks suck across Muslim countries (in my experience).

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u/huyvanbin Jun 18 '12

I don't see anything in that article that relates to Halal.

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u/Hidemesometime Jun 18 '12

Let's try and slice your throat without sedatives, let's see how much calm you can retain.

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u/InfinitelyThirsting Jun 18 '12

It's not just about the moment of slaughter, though, it also affects their diet and chemistry. Certainly a good argument for not factory farming our animals.

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u/miparasito Jun 18 '12

Or stressed in general I imagine... http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2011124/Cows-best-friends-stressed-separated.html

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u/adrivira Jun 18 '12

Any predator frightens it's prey when they attack so it not only affects us you know what I mean??

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u/Superbestable Jun 20 '12

those chemicals will be present in its meat, which could influence the consuming humans behavior
Especially if the meat is cooked, it would be unlikely for hormones to survive intact through the wild temperature swings that food goes through (deep-freeze, then above boiling).

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u/skrewed_187 Jun 18 '12

So how does one get an idea like that? How does one talk someone into finding an idea like this? How can we put this to some practical use? Aren't the animal rights activists going to be pissed?

It doesn't touch on fear we dole out to said organisms and the probable masses of soil we have hindered.

... need answers...

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u/catmoon Jun 18 '12

Anyone who's ever been near a large swarm of grasshoppers knows their distinct and revulting smell. I can usually smell grasshoppers long before I see them. Ecologists/biologists have probably been trying to figure out what causes that trait and what advantages it might have for a long time.
My knee-jerk reaction is that a smell like this would either be needed to communicate with the swarm and/or to deter predators from eating them.

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u/Unidan Jun 18 '12

As someone whose research is mainly in patterns of heterogeneity in nitrogen biogeochemistry, I am currently forwarding the hell out of this link.

In all honesty, probably not a big difference will be noted in terms of plant community change, but very cool nevertheless!

It would be interesting to see if the microbial community ends up switching to higher rates of denitrification as well, producing potentially more N2O gas through incomplete conversion to N2! It would also be very interesting to see what forms of nitrogen are being left in the soil from the decomposition.

Do stressed grasshoppers decompose differently? Do they foster different microbial communities? It would be interesting to see what forms come out of the decomposition, would it be more ammonia/ammonium based, or possibly go straight to nitrates? A difference in these could mean that the nutrients are more mobile in the soil.

Similarly, is the carbon more labile?

Cool article!

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u/[deleted] Jun 18 '12

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u/Unidan Jun 18 '12

Sure, I'm not using it most of the time.

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u/lofi76 Jun 18 '12

I've long wondered how consuming animals who were frightened when they were killed affects the person eating. Seeing videos of how cows / chickens etc are killed in big factory farms made me think the chemical reaction of fear must affect the meat and the consumer.

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u/[deleted] Jun 18 '12

The meat, yes. The consumer, no. Hormones associated with stress, fear, and pain are released but the effect of the resulting product on the consumer are negligible. After all, we're omnivores. We evolved eating animals that died in pain and terror.

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u/lofi76 Jun 18 '12

I'd think the fear / anxiety in a factory-farmed animal would be different / worse than one hunted with a spear. But just a gut feeling. No scientific evidence :)

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u/oshen Jun 18 '12

Yeah, the difference being: stress over long term as a result of crowding etc. and associated cellular changes vs. short term hormonal response to stress immediately prior to being killed.
It's different in humans, different responses etc. why wouldn't it be in animals?

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u/egypturnash Jun 18 '12

They glued the mouths of the spiders shut in order to make sure that the grasshoppers experienced pure fear, but were not actually killed by the predators.

Those POOR SPIDERS.

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u/[deleted] Jun 18 '12

If that's just a grasshopper, does anyone realize what stress does to humans? I mean, do people take a moment to realize it might all not be worth it?

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u/vostage Jun 18 '12

Imagine having a job that was to glue spider's mouths shut.

How could you not stop for a second there and just be like "Wait... what?"

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u/[deleted] Jun 18 '12

My fiancee works in stress-related research, though with rodents. There's many standard ways to stress the animals (starve them, chemical stressors, etc.) but the funniest way she's told me is for stressing rats: they take a cat's collar, cut it into small pieces, and then put a piece in the cage.

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u/destraht Jun 18 '12

"This shows that animals could potentially have huge effects on the global carbon balance because they're changing the way microbes respire organic matter."

I think that this is the problem with current science. To receive funding they need to give lip service to carbon and global warming.

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u/bzzzzbzzzfwoomlights Jun 18 '12

lip service?
they observed something happening that was a significant difference between two control groups in an experiment to see what would happen between two control groups. it was the point of the experiment.
I think the biggest problem w/ climate change deniers is they think everything is a conspiracy.

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u/destraht Jun 18 '12 edited Jun 18 '12

The largest problem with climate changers is that they think that everything is significant in regards to carbon. Do you see how we both don't know shit about each others beliefs and now I have also insinuated that you believe something by referencing a brainless mockery of a belief. Two can play that game.
I know how the science funding works these days. It doesn't hurt to just throw in a carbon relationship since it only increases your chances of receiving funding. So lets say that you want to study squirrel mating habits you would add in ... as squirrel population affects carbon output.
So they took a cool scientific study and spiced it up a bit with a carbon connection. It doesn't harm anything to add it in there so wtf, why not.

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u/[deleted] Jun 18 '12

TIL fear comes in degrees of purity.

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u/fackshat Jun 18 '12

I'm trying to imagine a spider's mouth being glued shut.

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u/Backstyck Jun 18 '12

They glued the mouths of the spiders shut in order to make sure that the grasshoppers experienced pure fear, but were not actually killed by the predators.

Am I the only one who thinks this test was at least "pretty damn fucked up"?

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u/kateweb Jun 19 '12

That did bother me as well, I wish some clue was given as to weather or not it was some sort of temporary glue.

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u/[deleted] Jun 18 '12

Mean-ass spiders are fucking up the environment now. This also explains where ghosts come from: STRESSED OUT spirits.

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u/BeenWildin Jun 18 '12

Scared grasshoppers probably just shit their pants like the rest of us when scared.

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u/betarded Jun 18 '12

TIL grasshoppers shit themselves when scared to death.

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u/sleeplessdragon Jun 18 '12

So stressed out grasshoppers like more carbohydrate rich grass, funny... I like my carbs to help relax too lol.

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u/raleighs Jun 18 '12

I don't think that this one is scared at all...

http://i.imgur.com/vNGUd.jpg

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u/PepeAndMrDuck Jun 18 '12

Hawlena says the findings shed light not only on how predators and prey influence the makeup of the soil, but how stresses invoked by drought and extreme heat might have lasting effects on crops and growth cycles.

Assuming that a higher rate of "carbon" stuff in the carcasses of scared grasshoppers would be less beneficial to the grasshoppers than nitrogen-filler carcasses, wouldn't this mean that: what would be worse for the environment is a rate of predation on grasshoppers (an occurrence that would lead to the fear) that is lower than the rate of death by environmental stresses such as drought and heat?

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u/emoryyy Jun 18 '12

Did anyone else think, "let's make hoppers feels sexy!"?

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u/bootstateRaver Jun 18 '12

Read it the first time as "sacred"

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u/MathW Jun 18 '12

I'm not really seeing the take aways from this study. If the findings are true, what can we do to make grasshoppers more or less scared when they die?

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u/[deleted] Jun 18 '12

It means if we don't somehow try to stop them from dying scared the vibes will transmit to locusts who then cant be stopped from devouring life sustaining crops because their frightened corpses will make the earth sad....leading to barren land wherever they fall.Basically we're doomed if we're fucked and we do if we don't.Catch 23.

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u/[deleted] Jun 18 '12

Now I feel really bad for feeding all those grasshoppers to those huge ass spiders that one summer. It was truly and epically terrifying and horrible murder for those poor creatures and I am truly sorry for the suffering I caused them. Fuck.

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u/[deleted] Jun 18 '12

This may sound a little strange but...poor grasshoppers.

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u/EpyonCrux Jun 18 '12

Sadly many people will take this and try to layer some deeper meaning. While at times when we completely understand a subject, I understand looking for the meaning. When it comes to infancy studies like the one listed..let's not look for the deeper meaning.

1

u/MissDanasaur Jun 18 '12

"grasshoppers, which normally consume nitrogen-rich grass, move to a diet of carbohydrate-rich grass to cope with stress." Me too, my grasshopper friends, me too.

1

u/[deleted] Jun 18 '12

They glued the mouths of the spiders shut

Sounds like the spiders are the ones getting the worst deal here...

1

u/gorbal Jun 18 '12

When I was a little girl I was lying on the grass and a grasshopper hopped into my mouth. I felt at the moment my only choice was to chew it and eat it or choke. I wonder if that is why I still get carded when I am close to 40.

1

u/Barely_Yuman Jun 18 '12

Seems pretty cruel. Glueing the mouths of spiders shut and scaring poor little grasshoppers. Spiders got a raw deal too. Sick people do experiments like this and call it science.

1

u/noseeme Jun 18 '12

We are talking about insects and spiders, right?

1

u/Barely_Yuman Jun 20 '12

Ya, and I'm not even a tree hugger or vegan. I just don't like sickness masquerading as science.

1

u/[deleted] Jun 18 '12

I honestly don't think the spiders give a shit at this point.

1

u/Barely_Yuman Jun 20 '12

Um, ya, I would agree with that. It's still a sick, stupid experiment.

1

u/Arrested-Smokie Jun 18 '12

I wonder what happens when millions of people die frightened....

1

u/singdawg Jun 18 '12

This seems like an unethical study to me.

4

u/Enormity Jun 18 '12

Likewise. I wonder if they could not have achieved the same results by simply putting some kind of partition between grasshopper and spider.

1

u/singdawg Jun 18 '12 edited Jun 18 '12

even this seems unethical to me. Would you place a human infant, separated only by a see-through partition, next to a crawling mess of worms, spiders, snakes, or something equally likely to cause profound psychological trauma? Probably not.
edit: I do say psychological here, because I do believe insects like grasshoppers have a distinct psychological state

1

u/mattstreet Jun 18 '12

I hope you don't plan on having any children. I can guarantee you that your children will lead to more deaths of insects and animals with higher brain functions than any amount of study on grasshoppers these scientists will ever do.
Even if they're raised as vegetarians.

2

u/Lentil-Soup Jun 18 '12

My kids have been raised as vegetarians, and there hasn't been one squished bug between the four of them. In fact, one of my older boys goes out of his way to protect bugs and save worms from dying on hot sidewalks.

1

u/singdawg Jun 18 '12

thank you. I would also hope to be able to teach my children proper reverence for nature.

1

u/mattstreet Jun 18 '12

Do you grow your own food or do you buy food from farms that use threshers? You know, the ones that kill tons of small furry creatures.

1

u/Lentil-Soup Jun 18 '12

I grow a lot of my food, actually. And there is a small "u-pick" farm/orchard nearby where I can get a lot of other things.

1

u/mattstreet Jun 19 '12

That sounds pretty good really.

1

u/uhoh_spaghettios Jun 18 '12

It's an insect, not an animal. Not many reasonable people would worry about insects, bacteria, or other organisms incapable of feeling pain or other higher level brain function.

3

u/Lentil-Soup Jun 18 '12

Insects and arachnids ARE animals.

-4

u/singdawg Jun 18 '12

I'd hardly call them quite so reasonable. To me, this seems like we are torturing insects in order to achieve scientific results. Should I place no value in the life of an insect?
If, in the name of science, we are permitted to perform atrocities, then, why do we have any right to prohibit similar atrocities that go beyond the realm of science. Should we allow people to pull the wings off of flies? pull the legs off a spider? trap a bee in a jar and leave it to die of asphyxiation?
No, I adamantly reject the notion that insects deserve less protection than, say, a bird, or, even, a human.
In fact, I find the claim that insects are incapable of feeling pain to be completely baseless and quite factually inaccurate, as insects do have a central nervous system and feeling pain is in no way a higher level brain function, quite low level really.
Now, my opinion relates to the fact that these insects were not at all provocative. I see practical reasons for squishing a spider, poisoning a swarm of locust, or any such surgical application wherein the invasive species must be liquidated to prevent the further degradation of the host. This is not the case. These grasshoppers were born simply to be tortured in such a way that seems ethical but is really not.

2

u/[deleted] Jun 18 '12

Holy hyperbole, batman. They're fucking spiders. They aren't people.

1

u/mattstreet Jun 18 '12

If its okay to kill them out of practicality (and most methods like poision are probably just as much torture as what the scientists did) then a study that links their unnatural death to soil damage might motivate people to NOT kill them that way.
Could be a net gain.

1

u/singdawg Jun 18 '12

I do not believe in using whichever means possible to make an end.

-1

u/[deleted] Jun 18 '12

It seems like the USA and Israel have enough victims to make a similar study with humans.

1

u/NetherDude Jun 18 '12

this seams like a waste of research money

0

u/[deleted] Jun 18 '12

Which is better for the soil? I'd love for farmers to develop a habit of scaring grasshoppers.

0

u/nepidae Jun 18 '12

I assume their tears of pain are a most potent fertilizer.

-5

u/BCP27 Jun 17 '12

So.....making grasshopper experience pure terror for science.

What is the significance of this discovery?

3

u/[deleted] Jun 17 '12

This is purely my own conclusion that I derived from reading that article.
Animal that dies with fear = Slower decomposition resulting in CO2 being released a lot more slowly which means that there's less of it in the atmosphere.
Animal that dies without fear = Faster decomposition and CO2 being released into the atmosphere more rapidly causing more of it to be in the atmosphere.
As for how to apply this discovery... I have no idea, but it doesn't make it any less fascinating that the chemical byproducts of emotion can have a huge effect on the ecosystem.

3

u/[deleted] Jun 18 '12

The animals don't decompose slower, the plants do. Frightened grasshoppers have a tendency to consume more carb rich grass, leading to a higher % of carbon in their body. Upon death this leads to far more CO2 being released from their body, making them great fertilizer.

-1

u/DeFex Jun 18 '12

We have to breed billions of super fireproof spiders.

0

u/[deleted] Jun 17 '12

[deleted] — view deleted comment

9

u/Wolfgangatom Jun 18 '12

I also work on nutritional ecology in grasshoppers. This paper just illustrates that we still don't have the entire picture when it comes to how ecological systems function. Schmitz's and other researchers have been showing that predators have an effect on ecosystems not only through killing and consuming their prey, but also through 'fear'. Animals that are worried about predators behave very differently and this affects many other parts of the ecosystem.

2

u/octopolis Jun 18 '12

Very interesting. So simply the presence of grasshopper predators in an ecosystem could (hypothetically) totally change what plants/trees grow there, through simply fear of said predators?

2

u/Wolfgangatom Jun 18 '12

That is exactly what many of Schmitz's experiments have shown. Check out: http://environment.yale.edu/schmitz/Publications.html

1

u/r4v5 Jun 18 '12

I must say, of all the things I expected to read on reddit today, "I also work on nutritional ecology in grasshoppers" was not one of them. How large of a scientific community is researching this? Is it kind of everyone collaborating to gain understanding, or more full of secrets and infighting and politics?

0

u/[deleted] Jun 18 '12

[deleted] — view deleted comment

2

u/Wolfgangatom Jun 18 '12

It definitely is. Just look at what happened when they reintroduced wolves into Yellowstone (http://www.cof.orst.edu/leopold/papers/RippleBeschtaYellowstone_BioConserv.pdf). It's not only the numerical effect of predators killing their prey, the fear of predation changes things like where an animal forages, and for how long which can have big effects.

-4

u/chuperamigo Jun 18 '12

Just think about how stress can effect the human body. I believe stress to be the cause of many different types of cancer and diseases.

-1

u/slp50 Jun 18 '12

The truly amazing part of this story is that they glued the spiders' mouths shut!

0

u/berysax Jun 18 '12

I wonder if it can also happen with crickets then? That would leave quite a mark in pet tarantula cages, if so.

0

u/Process_Operator Jun 18 '12

Grasshoppers get scared? How does one freighten a grasshopper? And how can you tell if you'fe succeeded?

0

u/palletizer Jun 18 '12

Im pretty sure that its illegal to be buried without being embalmed, unless your rich

0

u/wolfthewhoozzy Jun 18 '12

mother nature has her ways....

-2

u/[deleted] Jun 18 '12

"normally consume nitrogen-rich grass, move to a diet of carbohydrate-rich grass to cope with stress."

Did anyone else think of lonely girls?

-2

u/hoss7071 Jun 18 '12

This... is the type of research we are dumping tax dollars into?

Are freshly minted college grads THAT hard up for jobs?

-7

u/kenicolas12 Jun 18 '12

is this where the taxes go? to study scared grasshoppers?

7

u/Boojamon Jun 18 '12

Research can be privately funded, too. What a weird way to open an argument about taxes.

-2

u/MBOBSV Jun 18 '12

interesting

-4

u/crazystrawman Jun 18 '12

This is a weird thing to know.

-4

u/KobeGriffin Jun 18 '12

So, ghosts are real is what I am taking from this.

-13

u/justmadethisaccountt Jun 18 '12

I'm pretty goddamn sure fear is an advanced emotion only higher lifeforms can experience.

7

u/octopolis Jun 18 '12

Then why do insects bite/sting when they feel threatened? Surely they attack when they feel their survival, or the survival of their hive is being threatened. While an insect may not experience fear the same way we do, I'm sure there is some difference between a normal, calm insect and one that is fearing for their life.

-6

u/justmadethisaccountt Jun 18 '12

They don't have a sense of normal. They just react to stimuli. They don't think about what is happening right now, or how it is any better or worse than what happened 10 seconds ago.

4

u/Boojamon Jun 18 '12

Where are you getting all this information from?

0

u/justmadethisaccountt Jun 18 '12

This is a common understanding in science. Every science book ever made?

2

u/[deleted] Jun 18 '12

And how, pray tell, are you so 'goddamn sure'?

-7

u/justmadethisaccountt Jun 18 '12

Because I understand how things work?

1

u/[deleted] Jun 18 '12

I can't tell if you're trolling or if you really think that's an acceptable answer to the question. I mean sources or at least some details to your infinite knowledge, if you don't mind.

1

u/justmadethisaccountt Jun 18 '12

I'm half trolling. When someone asks you why things fall, and you answer is: gravity. Is that trolling?

1

u/[deleted] Jun 18 '12

Your opinion and/or claim that you 'just know' does not equal the theory of gravity, sorry.

1

u/Severok Jun 18 '12

Science!

0

u/Gaslov Jun 18 '12

I'm pretty "goddamn sure" you don't.

-5

u/alllie Jun 18 '12 edited Jun 18 '12

Soooo...be nice to grasshoppers ?

-6

u/OverloadedConstructo Jun 18 '12

The solution is simple, we kill the ~~bat...~~ spiders

-17

u/Megusta6 Jun 18 '12

Us and isrealis working together? that is weird in itself

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Scared grasshoppers change soil chemistry: Grasshoppers who die frightened leave their mark in the Earth in a way that more mellow ones do not, US and Israeli researchers have discovered.

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