Jadera haematoloma
Encyclopedia
Jadera haematoloma, the red-shouldered bug, goldenrain-tree bug or soapberry bug, is a species of true bug
that lives throughout the United States
and south to northern South America
. It feeds on seeds within the soapberry plant family, Sapindaceae
, and is known to rapidly adapt to feeding on particular hosts. People often confuse this species with the boxelder bug.
are mostly red with a black pronotum and wingpads. All appendages are blackish.
, Kansas
, Colorado
, Texas
, Arizona
, California
, Alabama
, Illinois
, North Carolina
, Missouri
, Colorado
, Iowa
, as well as Georgia
, South Carolina
, North Carolina
, Virginia
, Pennsylvania
and Maryland
. A study published in 1987, showed the distribution of J. haematoloma "revealed the close correspondence of records for the bug with the ranges of the soapberry plants that serve as the insects native hosts." In addition, isolated examples have been reported as far north as Minnesota
. Outside of the United States
, J. haematoloma is found south through Central America
and the West Indies to Colombia
and Venezuela
.
are particularly notable. The more southern of these two populations has colonized a native host soapberry
tree and balloon vine
(Cardiospermum corindum). This vine produces capsules of a fairly uniform size, which adult J. haematoloma feed on by inserting their mouthparts
(beak) through the capsule's exterior and into the interior seeds. In the mid-1950s, a southeast Asia
n tree, the flat-podded goldenrain tree (Koelreuteria elegans
), was introduced as an ornamental plant
. It escaped domestication and naturalized. Significantly, the goldenrain tree can be colonized by J. haematoloma, though its capsules are smaller and the seeds less deeply embedded than in the balloon vine.
In a seminal paper published in the scientific journal
Genetica in 2001, it was shown that evolution that had taken place in this southernmost population of J. haematoloma in a period of only a few decades. They showed that the beak length, which in the ancestral type was about 70% the length of the body, was only about 50% the body length in the insects that had colonized the non-native
tree, though the size of the bugs themselves had not changed. In addition, they found that:
Hemiptera
Hemiptera is an order of insects most often known as the true bugs , comprising around 50,000–80,000 species of cicadas, aphids, planthoppers, leafhoppers, shield bugs, and others...
that lives throughout the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
and south to northern South America
South America
South America is a continent situated in the Western Hemisphere, mostly in the Southern Hemisphere, with a relatively small portion in the Northern Hemisphere. The continent is also considered a subcontinent of the Americas. It is bordered on the west by the Pacific Ocean and on the north and east...
. It feeds on seeds within the soapberry plant family, Sapindaceae
Sapindaceae
Sapindaceae, also known as the soapberry family, is a family of flowering plants in the order Sapindales. There are about 140-150 genera with 1400-2000 species, including maple, horse chestnut and lychee....
, and is known to rapidly adapt to feeding on particular hosts. People often confuse this species with the boxelder bug.
Description
J. haematoloma are typically 9.5–13.5 mm (0.374015748031496–0.531496062992126 ) long and 3–4 mm (0.118110236220472–0.15748031496063 ) wide, though the short-winged form (brachyptera) usually is 7–8 mm (0.275590551181102–0.31496062992126 ) long. Color is mostly blackish (sometimes dark gray or purplish) except for red eyes, "shoulders" (lateral margins of pronotum), and costal margins and dorsal part of abdomen. NymphsNymph (biology)
In biology, a nymph is the immature form of some invertebrates, particularly insects, which undergoes gradual metamorphosis before reaching its adult stage. Unlike a typical larva, a nymph's overall form already resembles that of the adult. In addition, while a nymph moults it never enters a...
are mostly red with a black pronotum and wingpads. All appendages are blackish.
Distribution
For most of the twentieth century, little was know about the range of J. haematoloma. Reports showed breeding populations to be present in FloridaFlorida
Florida is a state in the southeastern United States, located on the nation's Atlantic and Gulf coasts. It is bordered to the west by the Gulf of Mexico, to the north by Alabama and Georgia and to the east by the Atlantic Ocean. With a population of 18,801,310 as measured by the 2010 census, it...
, Kansas
Kansas
Kansas is a US state located in the Midwestern United States. It is named after the Kansas River which flows through it, which in turn was named after the Kansa Native American tribe, which inhabited the area. The tribe's name is often said to mean "people of the wind" or "people of the south...
, Colorado
Colorado
Colorado is a U.S. state that encompasses much of the Rocky Mountains as well as the northeastern portion of the Colorado Plateau and the western edge of the Great Plains...
, Texas
Texas
Texas is the second largest U.S. state by both area and population, and the largest state by area in the contiguous United States.The name, based on the Caddo word "Tejas" meaning "friends" or "allies", was applied by the Spanish to the Caddo themselves and to the region of their settlement in...
, Arizona
Arizona
Arizona ; is a state located in the southwestern region of the United States. It is also part of the western United States and the mountain west. The capital and largest city is Phoenix...
, California
California
California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...
, Alabama
Alabama
Alabama is a state located in the southeastern region of the United States. It is bordered by Tennessee to the north, Georgia to the east, Florida and the Gulf of Mexico to the south, and Mississippi to the west. Alabama ranks 30th in total land area and ranks second in the size of its inland...
, Illinois
Illinois
Illinois is the fifth-most populous state of the United States of America, and is often noted for being a microcosm of the entire country. With Chicago in the northeast, small industrial cities and great agricultural productivity in central and northern Illinois, and natural resources like coal,...
, North Carolina
North Carolina
North Carolina is a state located in the southeastern United States. The state borders South Carolina and Georgia to the south, Tennessee to the west and Virginia to the north. North Carolina contains 100 counties. Its capital is Raleigh, and its largest city is Charlotte...
, Missouri
Missouri
Missouri is a US state located in the Midwestern United States, bordered by Iowa, Illinois, Kentucky, Tennessee, Arkansas, Oklahoma, Kansas and Nebraska. With a 2010 population of 5,988,927, Missouri is the 18th most populous state in the nation and the fifth most populous in the Midwest. It...
, Colorado
Colorado
Colorado is a U.S. state that encompasses much of the Rocky Mountains as well as the northeastern portion of the Colorado Plateau and the western edge of the Great Plains...
, Iowa
Iowa
Iowa is a state located in the Midwestern United States, an area often referred to as the "American Heartland". It derives its name from the Ioway people, one of the many American Indian tribes that occupied the state at the time of European exploration. Iowa was a part of the French colony of New...
, as well as Georgia
Georgia (U.S. state)
Georgia is a state located in the southeastern United States. It was established in 1732, the last of the original Thirteen Colonies. The state is named after King George II of Great Britain. Georgia was the fourth state to ratify the United States Constitution, on January 2, 1788...
, South Carolina
South Carolina
South Carolina is a state in the Deep South of the United States that borders Georgia to the south, North Carolina to the north, and the Atlantic Ocean to the east. Originally part of the Province of Carolina, the Province of South Carolina was one of the 13 colonies that declared independence...
, North Carolina
North Carolina
North Carolina is a state located in the southeastern United States. The state borders South Carolina and Georgia to the south, Tennessee to the west and Virginia to the north. North Carolina contains 100 counties. Its capital is Raleigh, and its largest city is Charlotte...
, Virginia
Virginia
The Commonwealth of Virginia , is a U.S. state on the Atlantic Coast of the Southern United States. Virginia is nicknamed the "Old Dominion" and sometimes the "Mother of Presidents" after the eight U.S. presidents born there...
, Pennsylvania
Pennsylvania
The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania is a U.S. state that is located in the Northeastern and Mid-Atlantic regions of the United States. The state borders Delaware and Maryland to the south, West Virginia to the southwest, Ohio to the west, New York and Ontario, Canada, to the north, and New Jersey to...
and Maryland
Maryland
Maryland is a U.S. state located in the Mid Atlantic region of the United States, bordering Virginia, West Virginia, and the District of Columbia to its south and west; Pennsylvania to its north; and Delaware to its east...
. A study published in 1987, showed the distribution of J. haematoloma "revealed the close correspondence of records for the bug with the ranges of the soapberry plants that serve as the insects native hosts." In addition, isolated examples have been reported as far north as Minnesota
Minnesota
Minnesota is a U.S. state located in the Midwestern United States. The twelfth largest state of the U.S., it is the twenty-first most populous, with 5.3 million residents. Minnesota was carved out of the eastern half of the Minnesota Territory and admitted to the Union as the thirty-second state...
. Outside of the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
, J. haematoloma is found south through Central America
Central America
Central America is the central geographic region of the Americas. It is the southernmost, isthmian portion of the North American continent, which connects with South America on the southeast. When considered part of the unified continental model, it is considered a subcontinent...
and the West Indies to Colombia
Colombia
Colombia, officially the Republic of Colombia , is a unitary constitutional republic comprising thirty-two departments. The country is located in northwestern South America, bordered to the east by Venezuela and Brazil; to the south by Ecuador and Peru; to the north by the Caribbean Sea; to the...
and Venezuela
Venezuela
Venezuela , officially called the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela , is a tropical country on the northern coast of South America. It borders Colombia to the west, Guyana to the east, and Brazil to the south...
.
Evolution
Two populations in southern FloridaFlorida
Florida is a state in the southeastern United States, located on the nation's Atlantic and Gulf coasts. It is bordered to the west by the Gulf of Mexico, to the north by Alabama and Georgia and to the east by the Atlantic Ocean. With a population of 18,801,310 as measured by the 2010 census, it...
are particularly notable. The more southern of these two populations has colonized a native host soapberry
Sapindaceae
Sapindaceae, also known as the soapberry family, is a family of flowering plants in the order Sapindales. There are about 140-150 genera with 1400-2000 species, including maple, horse chestnut and lychee....
tree and balloon vine
Cardiospermum
Cardiospermum is a genus of approximately 14 species in the soapberry family, Sapindaceae, which are native to the American, Indian, and African tropics...
(Cardiospermum corindum). This vine produces capsules of a fairly uniform size, which adult J. haematoloma feed on by inserting their mouthparts
Insect mouthparts
Insects exhibit a range of mouthparts, adapted to particular modes of feeding. The earliest insects had chewing mouthparts...
(beak) through the capsule's exterior and into the interior seeds. In the mid-1950s, a southeast Asia
Southeast Asia
Southeast Asia, South-East Asia, South East Asia or Southeastern Asia is a subregion of Asia, consisting of the countries that are geographically south of China, east of India, west of New Guinea and north of Australia. The region lies on the intersection of geological plates, with heavy seismic...
n tree, the flat-podded goldenrain tree (Koelreuteria elegans
Koelreuteria elegans
Koelreuteria elegans, more commonly known as the Chinese Rain Tree is a deciduous tree to 15-20 metres native to Taiwan and southern China. It is widely grown throughout the tropics and sub-tropical parts of the world as a street tree....
), was introduced as an ornamental plant
Ornamental plant
Ornamental plants are plants that are grown for decorative purposes in gardens and landscape design projects, as house plants, for cut flowers and specimen display...
. It escaped domestication and naturalized. Significantly, the goldenrain tree can be colonized by J. haematoloma, though its capsules are smaller and the seeds less deeply embedded than in the balloon vine.
In a seminal paper published in the scientific journal
Scientific journal
In academic publishing, a scientific journal is a periodical publication intended to further the progress of science, usually by reporting new research. There are thousands of scientific journals in publication, and many more have been published at various points in the past...
Genetica in 2001, it was shown that evolution that had taken place in this southernmost population of J. haematoloma in a period of only a few decades. They showed that the beak length, which in the ancestral type was about 70% the length of the body, was only about 50% the body length in the insects that had colonized the non-native
Introduced species
An introduced species — or neozoon, alien, exotic, non-indigenous, or non-native species, or simply an introduction, is a species living outside its indigenous or native distributional range, and has arrived in an ecosystem or plant community by human activity, either deliberate or accidental...
tree, though the size of the bugs themselves had not changed. In addition, they found that:
...derived bugs mature 25% more rapidly, are 20% more likely to survive, and lay almost twice as many eggs when reared on seeds of the introduced host rather than those of the native host. Fecundity is also twice as great as that of ancestral type bugs reared on either host, while egg mass is 20% smaller.
External links
- Detailed species account of Jadera haematoloma
- scentless plant bug, Jadera spp. on the UFUniversity of FloridaThe University of Florida is an American public land-grant, sea-grant, and space-grant research university located on a campus in Gainesville, Florida. The university traces its historical origins to 1853, and has operated continuously on its present Gainesville campus since September 1906...
/ IFASInstitute of Food and Agricultural SciencesThe University of Florida’s Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences is a federal-state-county partnership dedicated to developing knowledge in agriculture, human and natural resources, and the life sciences, and enhancing and sustaining the quality of human life by making that information...
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