Finally, it all depends on the species

One day, a Pest Management Professional calls his entomologist friend and asks if a cockroach is able to survive in a refrigerator, to which the entomologist answers. “It depends on the species.” Perhaps one of the answers that most irritates people when they consult a biologist, especially one who has specialized in taxonomy. Can't they simply answer yes or no? Isn't it the same thing from one cockroach to another, one fly to another, one rat to another? The answer is a resounding, no. To better understand nature, it is necessary to generate models that allow us to better analyze it. It is equivalent to when you organize your desk drawers, you classify them according to certain characteristics that

They allow you to locate them better when they are needed, whether color, size or use. Man has always sought to understand his environment and to do so he orders and names things. The same thing happens in nature, where we create models that allow us to deepen our knowledge. A good example (and perhaps the best) is Dmitri Mendeleev's periodic table of chemical elements, but another one that is constantly developing and that concerns us in this article is the classification of living beings. Before talking about the importance of identifying (or determining, as is correct) pests, it is worth understanding some concepts. First of all, it is important to clarify the differences in concepts that are

create synonyms. On the one hand, taxonomy, which is the study and application of the principles of classification and nomination of organisms, in taxa (plural of taxon) which are the units of classification (family, order, class, species). For its part, systematics is the study of diversity or relationships between organisms at the population level or at a higher level. In most proposals for the scientific classification of insects, rodents, birds or other living beings, they seek, to a greater or lesser extent, to reflect their kinship relationships and their evolutionary history. As we said before, they are models that allow man to understand nature and evolution. With this, it is then understandable that

In order to define that a small spider or a mouse belongs to a population, which we call “species”, it is necessary to understand beyond its description. This is perhaps why the taxonomist's practice is often despised, since it is thought that he is only dedicated to looking for the two or three characteristics that, according to a book full of incomprehensible words, will indicate a name in Latin that is apparently meaningless, but that looks very good in the report to the Pest Management Professional's client. Naturally, determining that an insect in a jar or trap has been classified as a certain species has required an in-depth study of this and many other species, even some not so close, to be able (at least with the available data) to be able to determine that it is a population or series of populations with free interbreeding and reproductively isolated from similar others or with gene pools that reproduce asexually and that can reproduce sexually to generate new combinations of genes, which evolve separately from others. This requires an analysis that involves many other disciplines such as physiology, anatomy, genetics, paleontology, biochemistry and many others. For the classification of living beings, in each group or taxon there must be two or more organisms that are similar in some way (with the exception of the species, not considering subspecies), but must also have at least one difference from others. Belonging to a group is NOT a valid characteristic for classification (such as those famous people who “are famous for being famous”). It is not about simply accommodating

in boxes as if it were a collection of prints from an album or the shirts from your closet. It is important that it provides current information about the organisms and allows us to understand their past and why they are the way they are. All to be able to call the house fly Musca domestica. At this point, what are those strange names for? What do words like chiripas, jates, chiménes, juanes, tecuejos, cuitas, carpiotas, lchulupis, güeras,

And why identify? As mentioned before, the recommended term is “determine”, since we place the specimen we analyze in the “box” of the classification that corresponds to it. Normally, identify refers to granting an “identity”, that is, we assign them a name that differentiates them from others. Like when you take a puppy that has followed us home and we call him “Fido”, an act that completes the welcome of the new pet. But naming a new species is not something simple and, of course, it is verified by a committee that verifies that it really is a new entity not known before and that it complies with the rules of a scientific nomenclature code. But in another sense and taking into account living language, it is possible to use both identify and determine in practice.

limited to common species or from a limited region. Therefore, the ideal is to approach specialists in the group, if you do not have knowledge of the terminology or specialized bibliography with identification keys (the use of which can be a great learning and joy). Needless to say now, each species has its own habits and interacts in a particular way with its environment. Therefore, determining what species we find at the client's site is of essential importance in the application of a truly comprehensive pest management plan, if we really want to call it that. It is not enough to illustrate and give an academic air to the report that we have to present to the manager or auditor, to end up applying the fashionable insecticide, the one that has just been recommended to us or, simply, the one that was on hand.

IF YOU IGNORE THE NAMES OF THINGS, DOES WHAT YOU KNOW ABOUT THEM ALSO DISAPPEAR? All of these names, and many more, are used to refer to Blatella germanica, described by Linnaeus (but not discovered, since it was already known many years ago) and named in a somewhat descriptive way, since its name means "small bug that escapes the light" and because it is based on specimens from a collection in Schleswig (now Germany). If we relied exclusively on vernacular or common names, it would be difficult for us to understand each other with someone from another region, even if we were talking about the same plague.

But then comes the problem of being able to make that determination correctly. Social networks are often used to publish medium to low quality photographs of a bug trapped in adhesive tape (a bad habit) to ask colleagues if anyone "has seen something similar and what product do I use to control it." Others acquire by looking in their books or on the Internet for images that, to their own eyes, seem the closest to the specimen in hand. While there are excellent, simple visual guides for identifying organisms, these are usually

Knowing the species provides us with very valuable information, already described by its scholars, about its preferences, its habitat, its weak points, its reproduction or the negative effect it may generate. All of this allows us to design an efficient strategy to not only eliminate, but prevent, the presence of such a pest. Therefore, the next time someone tells you “it depends on the species,” it is not (at best) an elusive answer; On the contrary, it is a very sincere one that can be of great support for a quality IPM service.