The Hamby Lab works to encourage the use of Insect Pest Management (IPM) in agroecosystems, aiming to improve management tactics and create more sustainable alternatives. Their latest study, “Preventative insecticides reduce seedling injury, but do not increase yield in Bt and non-Bt corn grown in the mid-Atlantic” demonstrates that while preventive tactics, like neonicotinoid seed treatments and in-furrow pyrethroids, effectively manage pests, consistent pest pressure is needed to justify their use. 
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After evaluating the effectiveness of these preventative insecticide treatments in field corn production, their study finds that while damage can be reduced using these early season preventive measures, at the end of the season yield is not significantly increased. The take-home message from the study: These preventive measures do not pay off in all situations and insecticide use could be reduced. A more effective IPM approach incorporates pest pressure, using preventative insecticides where pests consistently occur and foliar insecticides for sporadic issues that spring up. Multiple non-chemical prevention strategies should also be used before resorting to chemical treatments.

written by: Pick lab
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Visible features of organismal body plans are often highly conserved within large taxa. For example, different species of birds have wings and beaks. For insects, segmentation is a shared and defining feature of the body plan.  Screens in the model insect Drosophila previously identified genes responsible for the development of body segments and one might have thought that different insects would all utilize the same genes, given that they all are segmented. In a paper published from the Pick lab in Science Advances, Reding et al. show that this is not the case: different insects use different genes to achieve the same outcome – formation of body segments. Studying the milkweed bug, Oncopeltus fasciatus, graduate student Katie Reding undertook a challenging screen to ask if novel genes control segmentation in this species. Collaborating with scientists at the Institute for Genome Science, University of Maryland School of Medicine, she analyzed the sequences of genes expressed at time points during embryonic development when segmentation is established. She then analyzed the expression patterns of over 50 of these genes and identified one, Blimp1, expressed in a pattern expected for a role in segmentation. She followed this with RNA interference experiments that suggested a role for Blimp1 in generating segments. To stringently test Blimp1’ s function, Katie used CRISPR/Cas9 genome editing, a technique she had previously developed in the Pick lab, to generate a mutation in the newly identified gene. This mutation showed a Drosophila-like segmentation phenotype, although Blimp1 is not required for segmentation in Drosophila. This exciting result demonstrated genetic diversity underlying the highly conserved feature of segmentation in insects: during evolution, regulatory genes have changed function dramatically but without any impact on phenotype or morphology. Thus, organisms are even more diverse than their phenotypes show us: even for a shared feature, the genes controlling it may be wholly different in different species - an invisible layer of biodiversity in animal systems. 

"Legacy effects of long-term autumn leaf litter removal slow decomposition rates and reduce soil carbon in suburban yards," out in the journal Plants, People, Planet,  is one of Burghardt Labs latest pubs. Their study finds that in places where people historically have left their fallen leaves to decompose, without removing them, the soil holds up to 32% more carbon on average. Check out AGNR's press release here. Includes quotes by Max Ferlauto and suggests some ways one can adopt leaf leaving practices in the landscapes they manage. 

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 Dr. Nicolas Medina and Postdoc Mentor, Dr. Anahi Espindola, partnered up with Univ of Wyoming colleague Dr. David C. Tank to create a more robust evolutionary tree for Calceolaria. Using a new bait set gene sequencing method on recent and historic specimens of Calceolariaceae they were able to recover data for a wide range of DNA qualities at multiple phylogenetic scales. The results in this study demonstrate the efficacy of this new approach, which the authors hope, will be adopted for use in other systems. Their study entitled, "Calceolariaceae809: A bait set for targeted sequencing of nuclear loci", is out this week in Applications in Plant Sciences.


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In a paper just published in Developmental Biology, Matthew Fischer (MOCB alum), Patricia Graham (Research Scientist) and Leslie show that a regulatory element thought to be essential for gene expression in the early Drosophila embryo is actually not required for gene expression or for wild type development.  They used CRISPR-Cas9 genome editing to remove this DNA region from the genome. Unexpectedly, flies homozygous for this deletion are viable, fertile, and perfectly healthy in the lab. This finding demonstrates the importance of using different types of techniques to tackle research questions. It also raises new questions about the evolution of regulatory elements and their roles in extant species. 

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Professors Mike Raupp and Paula Shrewsbury team up with U.S. Department of Agriculture and Washington State University colleagues to help put to rest long standing uncertainty on whether or not adult Magicicada cicadas eat. Spoiler Alert! They do. See publication in the Journal of Insect Science  for the “full” story on cicadas' newly confirmed feeding behaviors.

For even more check out news articles interviewing lead researcher James R Hepler:  
https://phys.org/news/2023-10-adult-periodical-cicadas.html
https://www.sciencenews.org/article/debunk-periodic-cicada-myth-guts
https://www.earth.com/news/do-periodical-cicadas-eat-when-theyre-above-ground/

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Dr. Magdalene Ngeve and Postdoc Mentor (Dr. Maile Neel), as well as other fellow UMD and UMCES researchers, published a study in Ecology and Evolution. They examined how tropical storms Irene and Lee affected the genetic diversity of aquatic plants in the lower Hudson River Estuary. Researchers collected samples of Vallisneria americana Michx. (Hydrocharitaceae) before and after the storms. Checking DNA markers, they were surprised to find the plants as a whole were able to sustain genetic diversity. However, they celebrate these findings with caution. These plant populations were already small and reproduced mainly asexually relying on making exact copies of themselves, which doesn't add to genetic diversity. If more severe storms and human disturbances continue along the Hudson, these plants might struggle to recover. For a more complete understanding of long-term resilience, the authors would like to see more ongoing monitoring of genetic diversity and population size.

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The beautifully bright French marigold with its yellow, orange and mahogany blooms proves to be a bit too attractive to beneficial arthropods surrounding sweet corn fields. During the 2021 field season, researchers in the Hooks Lab and UMD Extension were busy, “Evaluating French marigold as a border insectary plant for the enhancement of beneficial arthropods in sweet corn plantings.” They found that while the marigold plants were indeed attracting beneficial arthropods such as encyrtid wasps and lady beetles, the beneficials remained near the marigold strips rather than dispersing throughout the sweet corn plots. The authors concluded that “when used as a border insectary plant, marigold may not improve biological control through predation and parasitization of economically important insect pests in sweet corn plantings”. Moreover, in the current study, marigold may have functioned as a natural enemy sink by luring natural enemies from sweet corn border rows.
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PhD student Anthony Nearman and Associate Professor Dennis vanEngelsdorp discovered that life spans of lab-kept honey bees are 50% shorter than they were in the 1970s.  The College talks to Anthony about this latest paper:

“When I plotted the lifespans over time, I realized, wow, there’s actually this huge time effect going on,” Nearman said. “Standardized protocols for rearing honey bees in the lab weren’t really formalized until the 2000s, so you would think that lifespans would be longer or unchanged, because we’re getting better at this, right? Instead, we saw a doubling of mortality rate.”

Check out the full AGNR press release for more about the study and implications of the findings. ​

The College talks to Dr. Espíndola about latest paper:

​Climate change is taking a serious toll on insects, UMD Entomology's Anahí Espíndola and dozens of scientists from around the world warned in a new paper published by the Ecological Society of America.

“We need to realize, as humans, that we are one species out of millions of species, and there's no reason for us to assume that we’re never going to go extinct,” Anahí said. “These changes to insects can affect our species in pretty drastic ways.”

Link to full press release here>> ​

Varroa mites and viruses they vector are leading causes of honeybee losses. University of Maryland researchers Drs Eugene Ryabov (Bee Lab) and Zachary Lamas (Hawthorne Lab) team up with U.S. Department of Agriculture to study varroa mite infectiousness and the effect of the vectored viruses on varroa survival. Last month they published their findings in Frontiers in Insect Science entitled, “The vectoring competence of the mite Varroa destructor for deformed wing virus of honey bees is dynamic and affects survival of the mite.” The authors hope this work will provide new insights into the varroa mites' impact on colony disease and ways to manage it. 

Link to paper:  https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/finsc.2022.931352/full

University of Maryland PhD candidate Kyle D. Brumfield and Drs. Rita Colwell and Michael Raupp, teamed up with colleagues from the University of Connecticut-Storrs, University of Connecticut-Hartford, University of California Berkeley, and EZbiome, Inc. to explore the rich diversity of the gut microbiome of periodical cicadas. For those interested in learning more about their research into these remarkable insects, check out publication out this week in Scientific Reports.

Link to article: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-022-20527-7

Spiders of the genus Steatoda, known as false black widows, have a resemblance to the black widow but are less harmful. However, around the world, there has been an increase of reports that this "less harmful" genus has been causing quite a debilitating bite. Heightened public concern has researchers, like grad student Mariom Adriana Carvajal (Shultz Lab), revisiting this genus. Mariom has been studying 1 of the 7 species found in Chile, taking a second look at its characteristics and its distribution. Today, Mariom and collegues published some of that work in Revista Chilena de Entomología, entitled, “A new record of Steatoda porteri in Chile.” Their findings show that although Steatoda porteri has extended its range, it remains outside urban areas for now. ​

The bold beautiful colors of a 1 inch long adult spotted lanternfly are pretty hard to miss. Their striking attributes allow for researchers to make many experimental observations about the insects, including discoveries about their feeding preferences as adults. However, at the earliest instars the spotted lanternflies are smaller and muted in color making feeding preferences much more difficult for researchers to track by observation alone. To overcome the difficulties of the observational approach, the Lamp Lab turns to DNA metabarcoding to get more insights about their diet. The results of their study were published earlier this summer in a special issue of Insects.
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Focusing exclusively on the first nymphal instars, the Lamp Lab used a novel approach, utilizing “bulk” DNA extracts for DNA metabarcoding of nymphal gut contents, to identify plants that the nymphs had ingested prior to being collected. Through this novel approach they were able to identify 13 novel host plants that have not been previously included in host plant lists for spotted lanternfly in the U.S. The Lamp Lab is hopeful that discoveries like these, on the diet of the spotted lanternfly across development stages, will lead to better management of this invasive species.

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Metarhizium is a common fungus that is found in soil and widely used in insect pest control today. It is known for its ability to kill a wide range of insects, protect surrounding plants and provide plants with much sought after nitrogen. St. Leger Lab has a new paper out in Current Opinion in Microbiology that looks into the current research on this fungi and its–plant–insect interactions. Although experimentation has led to detailed knowledge of how this fungus interacts with plants and insects, most of these studies have focused on highly controlled interactions between single species in the lab, leading to a knowledge gap when it comes to understanding Metarhizium plant–insect interactions in natural communities. The authors hope an increase in Metarhizium studies on natural ecosystems will lead to a more comprehensive understanding of this fungi’s plant protection ability.

Before concluding a shout out is needed. Congrats to Huiyu Sheng, this is her 1st first-authored paper, and to Raymond St. Leger her proud UMD mentor.
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Eriophyid mites, aka rust, gall and bud mites feed on all kinds of plants and have been estimated that there are close to a million species on the planet. Several species of eriophyid mites can cause stunting, curling and brown discoloration of leaves on host plants leading to millions of dollars in losses in production on grasses, ornamentals, forest and fruit trees. So what can farmers and other agricultural agents do to manage these mites? And can management be done sustainably? 

Researchers from the University of Maryland Department of Entomology Professor Emeritus Galen Dively and MS student Maggie Hartman team up with USDA's Ron Ochoa to investigate a more sustainable strategy for mite management involving the integration of chemical control, host plant resistance, and cultural practices. Their study, "Population Dynamics of Eriophyid Mites and Evaluation of Different Management Practices on Timothy Grass" published this month in the Journal of Economic Entomology, is the first to demonstrate the relative effectiveness of alternative management practices that could reduce the need for chemical control of eriophyoid mites on timothy grass. Read the paper here>>.

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The beautiful and abundant plant genus Calceolaria L. is one of most iconic Andean plant genera. However, its evolutionary relationships have remained evasive despite dozens of years of research. Further understanding of the evolutionary history of the group can hold the key to recognizing patterns of diversification across the world's largest mountain ranges, the Andes. Researchers Lauren Frankel (former researcher in the EspindoLab), Dr. Murúa and Dr. Espindola’s latest paper – published this week by the Botanical Journal of the Linnean Society – used chloroplastic genome analyses to help fill in the gap of Calceolaria’s evolutionary history. Through this approach they were able to resolve for the first time the backbone of the genus, identify two main clades that also display interesting pollination-relevant traits, and estimate a timing of diversification contemporaneous to major climatic and orogenic events. Check out paper here>>

Additional shout out to Lauren Frankel; this is her 1st first-authored paper, and to Anahi Espindola her proud UMD mentor. Fun fact, this is the same journal in which Anahi had her first first-author paper published!

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