Sweetpotatoes, Ipomoea batatas (L.) Lam. (Convolvulaceae), are typically grown on bare soil where weeds and erosion can be serious problems. Conservation tillage systems using cover crop residues as mulch can help reduce these problems, but little is known about how conservation tillage affects yield and quality of sweetpotato or how these systems impact populations of beneficial and pest insec...

For their simplicity and effectiveness, pitfall traps have become a standard technique to measure the activity and relative abundance of ground-dwelling arthropods. Permeable screen or mesh bags filled with plant material, referred to as litter bags, have also recently been employed as a complementary sampling technique for epigeal taxa. The anticipated need for increased field research on arth...

Mass spectrometry imaging provides for non-targeted, label-free chemical imaging. In this study, atmospheric pressure high-resolution scanning microprobe matrix-assisted laser desorption/ionization mass spectrometry imaging (AP-SMALDI MSI) was used for the first time to describe the chemical distribution of the defensive compounds pederin, pseudopederin, and pederon in tissue sections (16 μm th...

Extensive mortality of whitebark pine, beginning in the early to mid-2000s, occurred in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem (GYE) of the western USA, primarily from mountain pine beetle but also from other threats such as white pine blister rust. The climatic drivers of this recent mortality and the potential for future whitebark pine mortality from mountain pine beetle are not well understood, y...

A novel approach to Bayesian Reinforcement learning (RL) named Beetle has recently been presented; this approach nicely balances exploration vs. exploitation while learning is performed online. This has produced an interest into experimental results obtained from the Beetle algorithm. This thesis gives an overview of bandit problems and modi es the Beetle algorithm. The new Beetle Bandit algori...

Three species of rove beetles (subfamily Aleocharinae) were collected from colonies of Aenictus hodgsoni Forel, 1901 in Khao Yai National Park, Thailand. They are classified into three genera, including two new genera, and described herein as: Aenictobia siamensis Maruyama, sp. n. (tribe Aenictoteratini), Aenictosymbia cornuta Maruyama, gen. & sp. n. (tribe Lomechusini) and Aenictoxenides mirab...

background: the main object of this experimental work was to practise laboratory production both adult and the larval stage of hymenolepis diminuta with conventional modification to make further studies easier. materials & method: adults h. diminuta were collected from urban rats in tehran, iran. the beetles became infected using blended gravid segments with flour as bait. cysticercoids have be...

the meloidae, known as blister beetles, a widespread family of tenebrionoidea that includes approximately 2500 species, is still scarcely known faunistically in several areas of the world. because of specific biogeographical feature, iran harbors a rich diversity of meloids and due to the lack of basic and integrated studies, particularly in eastern parts of iran, our current knowledge of irani...

The Getty Conservation Institute and the J. Paul Getty Museum have been studying the use of low oxygen atmospheres using nitrogen for pest eradication. Earlier work by Nieves Valentin and Frank Preusser found that a 30-hour exposure to an atmosphere of 0.5% oxygen and 99.5% nitrogen killed all life stages of the fruit fly (Drosophila melanogaster) [1]. In a collaborative project at the Universi...