Flood the Dataspace

A new approach to warding off mice eating wheat seed using camouflage scents

May 2023, phys.org

https://phys.org/news/2023-05-approach-warding-mice-wheat-seed.html

Spraying wheat fields with wheat germ oil after seeding deters mice that feed on seeds.

Mice consume approximately 70 million tons of maize, rice and wheat grains each year around the globe

Colleagues in New Zealand had tried smearing the scents of endangered birds over areas where the birds would never visit. This led to predators growing suspicious of such scents, because when followed, there was no payoff. That led them to ignore the smell of the birds even when they were present.

To see if the approach might work with mice, the team treated 60 10x10 plots with wheat germ oil, which contains the scent of the wheat germ - the part of the wheat the mice want to eat. To gauge its effectiveness, the team sprayed it on plots before planting seeds and others after seeding. They also left a few plots untreated.

They were surprised to find that the oil did not serve as a false signal; the mice still ate the seeds where the plots had been pretreated. But they also found that the mice largely left alone the plots where treatment had occurred after planting. This, the researchers suggest, was likely because an overabundance of aroma had confused the mice, making it nearly impossible for them to find the seeds.

via University of Sydney: Finn C. G. Parker et al, Olfactory misinformation reduces wheat seed loss caused by rodent pests, Nature Sustainability (2023). DOI: 10.1038/s41893-023-01127-3

https://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41893-023-01127-3

Post Script: In the modern world where we scavenge for data more than we do food, and in an effort to protect our own personal data, quite valuable in this modern world, we would call this "data poisoning," where you might use a different name every time you register for a webservice or purchase an e-ticket, filling the spreadsheet with similar but not the same names, confusing the predictive analytics machine with dirty data. On this note, one bonus we can expect from the deluge of artificially-generated digital detritus coming our way, is that it will fill the entire internet with fake people, which will fill the entire data-bundle of your favorite data broker with fake people, all with fake addresses and fake phone numbers and fake preferences for consumer products, and this will collapse the surveillance advertising industry.  

Partially related image credit: AI Art - Crowd of Doctors Celebrating Like Football Players - 2023

Olfactory Camouflage aka Artificial Animal Smells

Endangered birds can be protected from predators with chemical camouflage

Oct 2022, phys.or

https://phys.org/news/2022-10-endangered-birds-predators-chemical-camouflage.html

"Predator control"

In the first treatment sites, the researchers spread waterfowl odor in wetland areas. With the chemical camouflage, a new method successfully tested in Australia and New Zealand, the researchers studied whether great amounts of prey odor in the area prevents predators from finding the artificial bird nests.

In other areas, the researchers used eggs containing an aversive agent causing nausea with the goal of conditioning the predators to believe that the bird eggs were inedible. The researchers also used control sites which they visited as frequently as the treatment sites for controlling a potential disturbance effect.

The study showed that especially the chemical camouflage decreased the predation of the artificial waterfowl nests by red foxes, but a similar effect was not observed with raccoon dogs, a harmful invasive species to Finland.

"Red foxes might rely more on their sense of smell to find bird nests, while the raccoon dog might find the nests by happenstance when they move in the area," says Senior Researcher Vesa Selonen from the University of Turku, Finland.

via University of Turku: V. Selonen et al, Protecting prey by deceiving predators: A field experiment testing chemical camouflage and conditioned food aversion, Biological Conservation (2022). DOI: 10.1016/j.biocon.2022.109749

https://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.biocon.2022.109749

Image credit: AI Art - Seamless Texture Camouflage - 2023

Olfacotry Camouflage

Scientists used 'fake news' to stop predators from killing endangered birds—and the result was remarkable

Mar 2021, phys.org

https://sciencex.com/news/2021-03-scientists-fake-news-predators-endangered.html

Amazing; you just don't hear about olfactory camouflage much:

Odors emanating from the shorebirds' feathers and eggs attract these scent-hunting mammals, which easily find the nests.

Five weeks before the shorebirds arrived for their breeding season in 2016, we mixed the odors with Vaseline and smeared the concoction on hundreds of rocks over two 1,000-hectare study sites. We did this every three days, for three months.

The predators were initially attracted to the odors. But within days, after realizing the scent would not lead to food, they lost interest and stopped visiting the site.

via: Grant L. Norbury et al. Misinformation tactics protect rare birds from problem predators, Science Advances (2021). DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.abe4164

Image credit: Lord of the Rings, scene where the Black Rider sniffs and misses.