Billion Dollar Benefit of Bats

Researchers exploring the damage done by corn earworms and the difference bats can make shared a big number recently in Science magazine.

Bats, the research suggests, can improve corn yield worldwide to the tune of $1
billion a year for farmers. The mammals feed on moths that would otherwise cause corn earworms, the crop-damaging larvae of a particular moth.

The study, conducted in 2013 and 2014, used nets at night to block bats from sections of Illinois corn fields. Researchers removed the nets during the day so farmers could work in the fields and birds could conduct their own brand of pest control.

Corn grown in the sections where bats were blocked had 56% more larvae-
damaged kernels, according to a report from the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

The study arrived at the $1 billion global gain by estimating a 1.4% increase in yield, which at current prices, is about $3.18 more per acre.

Another finding: Corn protected by bats also had lower concentrations of fumonisin, a fungi-produced toxin that’s a health hazard to livestock and a detriment to overall crop value.

The study contains a noteworthy asterisk.

The variety of corn researchers grew was not genetically modified to produce an insecticide that resists the earworm larvae. And, 84% of corn grown in the U.S. produces such an insecticide.

Worldwide, however, only 32% of corn varieties are genetically modified to protect against the larvae. S