Queensland researchers test arachnid venom as insecticide ingredient

Arachnid venom could be the next key ingredient in insecticides to help farmers in their fight against crop pests such as locusts. University of the Sunshine Coast researcher Shaodong Guo is investigating hundreds of spider and scorpion venoms for chemical compounds, drawing on the world’s largest arachnid venom collection in an attempt to develop commercial insecticides to protect crops. He has been awarded $240,000 by the Advance Queensland Industry Research Fellowship to help further his and his team’s research into creating a toxin-based insecticide. Dr Guo said his lab was one of the few in the world to experiment with oral ingestion of venoms. “We have some initial data on 200 venoms we’ve previously investigated in relation to crickets, cockroaches and dipterans, so we’ll start there,” he said. “Most of those are tarantula venoms. There’s also some Sydney and Tasmanian funnel-web spiders and 20 or so different scorpions in there too.” Dr Guo said the research team will identify and isolate the specific chemicals that attack locusts once a shortlist of the most promising and potent venoms are compiled. He said this was especially important to prevent any possible harm to non-target species. “Venoms are incredibly complex, containing different peptides for different jobs,” Dr Guo said. “The peptides that harm prey, like locusts, work by targeting the ion channels in their central nervous system. This means they can be utilised for targeting specific insect pests without affecting beneficial insects and vertebrate animals.” Dr Guo said he and his team would look at potential effects on bees — specifically memory loss — which is a problem caused by a lot of current chemical pesticides. Dr Guo said while there were several chemical insecticides already available to treat locusts, their “poor selectivity” and lingering half-life meant they needed to be used with caution. He said a toxin-based alternative would be better both for human health and the environment. “Venom peptides are highly potent, actually more so than most chemical pesticides,” Dr Guo said. “But they’re also fully biodegradable and have zero-day preharvest interval (PHI), which means they can be applied to a crop on the same day of harvest. They finish the job, then break down.” Dr Guo said while initial results had been “promising”, it would take some years before the potential insecticides are made commercially viable. “This is all still very new. There’s only one venom pesticide – derived from Australia’s Blue Mountains funnel webs – that’s been developed commercially and approved for use in America,” he said. “Two more (pesticides) are in development.”