Bone was a crucial biological material for the evolution of large terrestrial organisms and is today essential for most of our daily activities and well-being. From an engineering perspective, this living material features highly desirable properties for modern load-bearing structures. It is made of abundant and environmental-friendly building blocks, which are combined into a tough and durable structure that can continuously modify itself to adapt to changes in the mechanical load imposed by the surroundings. In this review article, we compile and discuss scientific findings that allow us to understand bone as a complex system with properties that emerge from cell-mediated interactions of molecules and particles at multiple length scales. Analogous to other complex systems, such interactions lead to self-organization, hierarchical structures and adaptive behavior without the need of a central controlling unit. A rich range of physical, chemical and biological phenomena provide a framework for information to be generated and processed in this complex system. Understanding the interplay between such underlying phenomena and their emerging properties should help the diagnosis and treatment of bone-related medical conditions and might provide guidelines for the future development of more sustainable materials and engineering structures.

O trabalho teve por objetivo estudar o efeito do número de liberações semanais de Trichogramma galloi Zucchi, 1988, em áreas de cana-de-açúcar sucessivamente infestadas com ovos de Diatraea saccharalis (Fabr., 1794). Foram conduzidos experimentos com a variedade RB 72454, com seis e nove meses de idade, em duas regiões distintas, espaçamento de l,40m, sendo por região, demarcadas quatro áreas de um hectare, delimitando-se no centro delas, uma parcela com 400 m². Cada parcela foi, por três semanas consecutivas, infestada com 25 casais de D. saccharalis, liberando-se T. galloi da seguinte forma (tratamentos): 1. sem liberação (testemunha); 2. uma liberação logo após a primeira infestação artificial; 3. duas liberações, uma logo após a primeira infestação artificial e outra após a segunda infestação com intervalo de sete dias; 4. três liberações, cada uma logo após a infestação artificial a intervalos semanais. Pôde-se concluir, para ambos os experimentos, que para se manter elevado o parasitismo de ovos, por T. galloi, no período crítico de oviposição de D. saccharalis, são necessárias liberações sucessivas do parasitóide.

This work was carried out to study the effect of weekly releases of Trichogramma galloi Zucchi, 1988 on egg parasitism of the sugarcane borer, Diatraea saccharalis (Fabr., 1794). The research was conducted in two distinct regions of the State of São Paulo, Brazil, using the sugarcane variety RB 72454, six and nine months old, cultivated in a spacing of 1.40m. The experimental plots were artificially infested with sugarcane borer eggs on a weekly basis during 3 weeks, as following: a - Control (no releases); b - one T. galloi release after the first egg infestation; c - two T. galloi releases: one after the first egg infestation and the other following the second egg infestation; d - three weekly releases of T. galloi. The results showed that weekly releases are necessary to maintain high levels of T. galloi parasitization during the peak period of sugarcane borer eggs.