Could the snout weevil help ranchers?
By Chelsie Vandaveer
August 6, 2003
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Woolly locoweed (Astragalus mollissimus Torrey) is native to the western U.S. ranging from South Dakota to Texas and across to Nevada. Woolly loco is not particularly palatable to cattle, horses, and sheep. But it is one of the first to emerge from winter dormancy and one of the last to die down when other plants have withered. With few other plants for forage, range animals will eat woolly loco. Once herbivores have eaten it, they are habituated to the plant. They will seek it out and refuse other foods if the plant is available.
Woolly locoweed contains swainsonine, an indolizidine alkaloid. The alkaloid affects the lysosomes, the storage, recycling, and disposal units of the cell. It inhibits the enzyme, alpha-mannosidase causing an accumulation of oligosaccharides and glycoproteins--lysosomal storage disease. When this condition is caused by swainsonine, it is called locoism.
Locoism is first identified when the animal, particularly horses, behave 'crazy'. The animals become aggressive, are hyperactive with an odd staggering gait, appear blind, and carry their heads close to the ground. Swainsonine eventually causes seizures and heart failure. In low doses, it retards the animal's growth and condition, and is a teratogen causing debilitating and horrific birth defects. ("Swainsonine Poisoning", Animal Science Department, Cornell University)
Despite the toxic alkaloid, woolly loco has a specialist predator, the snout weevil (Cleonidius trivittatus Say). The grubs (larval stage) of the snout weevil feed both inside and outside on the locoweed. The grubs girdle the stem interrupting the phloem and xylem. Root and shoot are cut off from each other, killing the plant.
Entomologist Dave Thompson with the Agricultural Experiment Station, New Mexico State University is studying the weevils' life cycle and habits to determine if this insect may provide a feasible control for woolly loco. ("Locoweed: Enough to Drive Ranchers Crazy", Sandra Avant, College of Agriculture and Home Economics, NMSU, 1998)
Corona Ranch, the Range and Livestock Research Center of NMSU, has great photographs of woolly loco (Astragalus mollissimus var. mollissimus). To view the photographs, click on the link:
http://web.nmsu.edu/~kallred/corona/AsMoM.html
Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia an excellent discussion of lysosomes, their activity within the cell. To learn more about these organelles, click on the link:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lysosome
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