Aphids

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Aphids
© Roger Key/English Nature

There are almost 500 species of these tiny insects found in Britain, most of them being only two or three mm long. Aphid recognition is therefore, not surprisingly, a very rare skill indeed. Most aphids feed on young shoots and leaf sap and are very unwelcome in gardens. Others feed on roots and can be equally damaging, although unseen. A few species are restricted to just one kind of plant: others have several host species in different forms of their development. They reproduce asexually and in this way build up to the huge masses of individuals sometimes found on beans, spinach, dahlias and many other plants. Green aphids also feast on roses.

Aphids are often tended by ants, which relish the sweet honeydew that they secrete as a waste product from the excess sugars aphids get from sucking plant sap. Common black garden ants will rear and protect aphids in a manner reminiscent of a shepherd tending his flock.

Creatures as numerous as these are bound to attract many predators. The most fearsome of these are the ladybirds that, both as larvae and adults, consume huge numbers of aphids daily. The larvae of many lacewing and several species of hoverfly also account for many aphids: yet another reason to make efforts to induce these useful and attractive insects to come to your garden. Many small birds eat aphids including tits, goldcrests, and small warblers such as willow warblers and chiffchaffs. Seed-eaters like chaffinches, linnets, greenfinches and goldfinches feed aphids to their young, as do robins and house sparrows. Birds seen wiping their beaks on leaves or twigs have often been feasting on these insects.

The aphid's honeydew is often secreted in such large quantities that the excess is exuded and drops to the ground. Here, it may become colonised by sooty mould fungi, disfiguring foliage. The excess can also lead to 'sugar-coated' cars beneath trees that aphids favour, especially limes, sycamores and laburnums.

Plants

Common nettle, Large-flowered butterwort, Ramsons

Predators

Agonum dorsale, Birds, Blue tit, Brown lacewing, Chaffinch, Chiffchaff, Common wasp, Crevice spider, Cucumber green spider, Dance fly, Dolichovespula media, Garden orb-web spider, Garden warbler, Goldcrest, Goldfinch, Green lacewing, Greenfinch, Hornet, House spider, Ladybird (10-spot ), Ladybird (2-spot), Ladybird (7-spot), Ladybird (14-spot), Ladybirds, Linnet, Linyphia triangularis, Long-tailed tit, Marmalade hoverfly, Marsh tit, willow tit, Mournful wasp, Oak bush-cricket, Red ant, Redpoll, Robin, Siskin, Small black ant, Syrphus ribesii, Tachyporus chrysomelinus, Tachyporus hypnorum, Tent spider, Treecreeper, Whitethroat, Willow warbler, Window spider, Wren, Yellowhammer