Via PHYSORG:
Sunbathing may be healthy – at least for one group of North American insects that apparently uses the activity to fight off germs, Simon Fraser University scientists have found.
Western Boxelder bugs (WBB), found largely in B.C. interior regions, are known to group together in sunlit patches and while there, release monoterpenes, strong-smelling chemical compounds that help protect the bugs by killing germs on their bodies.
Researchers previously thought the compounds had a role in reproduction or defending the bugs against predators. But their latest study found that the compounds were emitted when the bugs were in sunshine – in effect, sunbathing – and weren't used for communication or other purposes.
According to the researchers, sunlight appears to activate the biosynthesis of the compounds in the bugs, described as highly gregarious creatures. The chemicals then physically encase fungal spores on the bugs' body surface and set off a chain of events that ultimately protect them from germ penetration.
Their findings are published in the August issue of the journal Entomologia Experimentalis it Applicata. Keep on reading...
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