An epic chronicle of beetles: a genome sequenced, a future more secure

For part three in the series of beetle blogs, I did a little research and uncovered possibly one of the most fascinating and accomplishing feats ever attempted in the realm of coleopterology (the study of beetles). As a beetle enthusiast, I have learned that the majority of beetles are relatively harmless and pose no significant threats to humans or the natural environment, but rather more often than not beetles generally serve a purpose as a benign catalyst in the process of natural selection. If beetles did not exist on earth, then I honestly think that life would not be possible to flourish on Earth the way it does today. Simply put, beetles display a number of favorable traits that further the development of many environments due to their helpful nature, including abilities such as cleaning out waste, disposing of other insect pests, mutualism between other organisms, and pollination of plants just to name a few examples. Assuming most entomologists (people who study insects) admire the beetle for its diversity and niche in the natural world, there could still be disagreement about certain beetles that are undesirable in an environment and what to do with beetles that harm local populations by spreading like viruses and infecting healthy habitats.

The case with so called "malignant" beetles includes a recently infamous beetle known as the Mountain Pine Beetle. These beetles are known in British Columbia for their devastating impact on populations of lodgepole pine forests. There is incredible news to be noted though, as witnessed by Christopher Keeling, a research associate in Prof. Joerg Bohlmann's lab at the Michael Smith Laboratories, the genome of this pine beetle has been successfully sequenced and marks a significant
precedence in the field of genome sequencing because this is the second beetle species in history to have its genome fully sequenced! Why then, is it important you may ask, that scientists sequence the genome of this voracious beetle that constantly destroys forests around Canada? The answer is given further in the article that mentions how "Sequencing the mountain pine beetle genome provides new information that can be used to help manage the epidemic in the future." These beetles have adapted to their specific environments and being observed to contain vast amounts of variation, the difficulty of tracking what kind of genes affect how these beetles behave has finally been solved! The future now holds many prospects as far as artificial selection, with scientists choosing traits and isolating genes that normally would cause beetles to damage the bark of these pine trees to becoming more harmless and potentially more beneficial to the environment!
 
NOS themes:

1. Science is collaborative: It took a team of highly trained scientists to coordinate and track down these elusive beetles, and then sequence their genomes in a laboratory.

2. Role of motivation and curiosity: If the group of scientists who sequenced this beetle's genome
weren't motivated enough to do so, then such a ground-breaking achievement might not have come.

3. Science is based on evidence: With the genome sequenced, there is evidence to support how certain variations in the gene pool of these insects affect certain traits that either harm or help the environment.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/04/130405155832.htm

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/03/130327093612.htm