PLAY PODCASTS
Wild Inside: The aphid

Wild Inside: The aphid

Insights into the anatomy and physiology of the tiny sap-sucking aphid

Discovery · BBC World Service

April 15, 202426m 28s

Audio is streamed directly from the publisher (open.live.bbc.co.uk) as published in their RSS feed. Play Podcasts does not host this file. Rights-holders can request removal through the copyright & takedown page.

Show Notes

The tiny sap-sucking aphid, at just a few millimetres long, is the scourge of many gardeners and crop-growers worldwide, spreading astonishingly rapidly and inflicting huge damage as it seeks to outwit many host plants’ natural defences. With insights and guidance from aphid expert George Seddon-Roberts at the John Innes Centre, Norwich, some delicate dissecting tools, and a state of the art microscope, Prof Ben Garrod and Dr Jess French delve inside this herbivorous insect to unravel the anatomy and physiology that has secured its extraordinary reproductive success, whilst offering new clues as to how we could curtail its damaging impact in the future.

Co-Presenters: Ben Garrod and Jess French Executive producer: Adrian Washbourne Producer: Ella Hubber Editor: Martin Smith Production co-ordinator: Jana Bennett-Holesworth