scholarly journals Comparative virulence of Beauveria bassiana isolates against clover root weevil (Sitona obsoletus)

2015 ◽  
Vol 68 ◽  
pp. 139-145
Author(s):  
T.L. Nelson ◽  
M.R. McNeill ◽  
C. Van_Koten ◽  
S.L. Goldson

Clover root weevil (Sitona obsoletus) (CRW) is of Palearctic origin and in New Zealand has become an invasive pest of white clover A major survey was undertaken in 2000 to identify and collect the most promising CRW biocontrol agents from a wide range of locations in Europe and the UK Subsequently several Beauveria bassiana strains obtained from the cadavers of weevils originally collected live from England Wales France and Romania were isolated in containment at AgResearch Lincoln Thereafter bioassays using New Zealand fieldcollected CRW populations showed that all the European isolates were virulent against the adults with two being particularly effective Notably all of the European B bassiana isolates exhibited greater virulence against CRW than a New Zealand isolate collected from local CRW populations and a commercial B bassiana product registered in the USA as Botanigardreg;

1996 ◽  
Vol 6 ◽  
pp. 149-153
Author(s):  
K.H. Widdup ◽  
J.R. Caradus ◽  
J. Green ◽  
Mueller Pennell

An ecotype collection of 98 populations of white clover (Trifolium repens L.) from pastures in the eastern USA together with five USA Ladino and five New Zealand cultivars were grown in grass swards at Raleigh, North Carolina; Palmerston North and Lincoln, New Zealand. The material was compared for leaf size, cyanogenesis, seasonal growth, % clover cover and persistence. When examined as a single group, the USA ecotypes consisted of a wide range of plant types from small-leaved acyanogenic to large-leaved cyanogenic types. This contrasted with the uniformly large-leaved acyanogenic USA Ladino cultivars which have been the principal cultivars sown in eastern USA. Various selection pressures over time together with introgression between Ladino and resident wild clover types has resulted in a wide array of plant types. At the North Carolina site, USA ecotype material generally demonstrated better growth and persistence compared to the USA Ladino and New Zealand cultivars. The best ecotype plots from the Piedmont (inland region) had 55% clover cover by the third spring compared to 12% cover from the USA cultivar, SRVR and 2% cover from the NZ cultivar, Huia. Selective pressures such as hot summers, viruses, root-feeding pests and other stresses on the local clover types have resulted in ecotype material with improved adaptive features. The USA ecotype collection is an important source of germplasm for development of improved white clovers for the eastern USA. At the New Zealand sites, the USA material demonstrated pooraverage yields compared to NZ cultivars. However, a small set of USA ecotypes showed good recovery following the dry 1995 summer at Lincoln and this material warrants closer examination to determine the adaptive mechanisms involved. As the USA ecotypes show a general lack of adaptation to New Zealand pastures, any desirable features such as heat tolerance, deeper nodal roots or virus resistance uncovered in this material will require hybridisation and backcrossing with selected elite New Zealand material to capture the benefits. Keywords: adaptation, eastern USA, ecotype populations,


Author(s):  
B. Willoughby ◽  
P. Addison

Clover root weevil (Sitona lepidus) is established in Auckland, Waikato and Bay of Plenty provinces. A pasture survey in 1997 estimated that the rate of its spread at about 35 km annually. Adults feed on the foliage and larvae on roots and nodules of white clover. Pasture populations appear to be 10 times higher in New Zealand than in the UK. New Zealand's temperate climate and high clover content in pastures may offer a very favourable environment for S. lepidus, with serious implications for New Zealand's pastoral farming. Keywords: clover root weevil, pasture pests, Sitona lepidus, Trifolium repens, white clover


2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Fang Wang ◽  
Dingtao Hu ◽  
Xiaoqi Lou ◽  
Nana Meng ◽  
Qiaomei Xie ◽  
...  

Abstract Background: The outcomes of smoking have generated considerable clinical interest in recent years. Although people from different countries are more interested to the topic of quit smoking during the winter, few studies have tested this hypothesis. The current study aimed to quantify public interest in quit smoking via Google.Methods: We use Google Trends to obtain the Internet search query volume for terms relating to quit smoking for major northern and southern hemisphere countries in this research. Normally search volumes for the term “quit smoking + stop smoking + smoking cessation” were retrieved within the USA, the UK, Canada, Ireland, New Zealand and Australia from January 2004 to December 2018. Seasonal effects were investigated using cosinor analysis and seasonal decomposition of time series models.Results: Significant seasonal variation patterns in those search terms were revealed by cosinor analysis and demonstrated by the evidence from Google Trends analysis in the representative countries including the USA (pcos = 2.36×10-7), the UK (pcos < 2.00×10-16), Canada (pcos < 2.00×10-16), Ireland (pcos <2.00×10-16) ,Australia (pcos = 5.13×10-6) and New Zealand (pcos = 4.87×10-7). Time series plots emphasized the consistency of seasonal trends with peaks in winter / late autumn by repeating in nearly all years. The overall trend of search volumes, observed by dynamic series analysis, declined from 2004 to 2018.Conclusions: The preliminary evidence from Google Trends search tool showed a significant seasonal variation and decreasing trend for the RSV of quit smoking. Our novel findings in smoking cessation epidemiology need to be verified with further studies, and the mechanisms underlying these findings must be clarified.


Author(s):  
Anna Chalmers

In 1996 the national libraries of Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Ireland, Malaysia, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Singapore, the UK and the USA took part in a study of their experiences with strategic management. A literature review had identified 15 key aspects of strategic management. Respondents were asked their views of the importance of each aspect, and how satisfied they were with the library's achievement of it. In every case the importance attached to the aspect was greater than the library's satisfaction with achievement. Each library was also asked to nominate from a checklist the reason or reasons why it had produced its first strategic document. The centrality of the digital information environment to the core functions of national libraries has been highlighted by the study.


Author(s):  
Tony Ralli

From its small beginnings in 1981 of six pilot users and the National Library of Australia (NLA), the Australian Bibliographic Network (ABN) has grown to be a truly national system, with 1,315 users at May 1995. The National Bibliographic Database has expanded to over 11 million records and 22 million holdings statements. It includes records from the USA, the UK, Canada, New Zealand, Singapore and Vietnam. It has come to be the single union list of holdings of Australian libraries, and the first point of reference for the majority of interlibrary loan transactions. The ABN is seen as both an NLA business and a cooperative undertaking of Australian libraries. Management consists of a Network Committee, which advises the Director General of NLA on all aspects of operation, and a Standards Committee, whose role is to make recommendations to NLA on cataloguing standards for the network. Annual Users' Meetings are held. Since 1987 NLA has been developing a database host for Australian libraries called OZLINE, in parallel with ABN. In 1990 it was decided to go for complete redevelopment using a text retrieval product and an industry standard Relational Database Management System. Following discussions with the National Library of New Zealand, which had indicated broadly similar requirements, it was agreed that the two libraries would jointly seek a system. The Australian service is to be known in future as WORLD 1.


Author(s):  
Janet L. Peacock ◽  
Sally M. Kerry ◽  
Raymond R. Balise

Presenting Medical Statistics from Proposal to Publication (second edition) aims to show readers how to conduct a wide range of statistical analyses from sample size calculations through to multifactorial regressions that are needed in the research process. The second edition of ‘Presenting’ has been revised and updated and now includes Stata, SAS, SPSS, and R. The book shows how to interpret each computer output and illustrates how to present the results and accompanying text in a format suitable for a peer-reviewed journal article or research report. All analyses are illustrated using real data and all programming code, outputs, and datasets used in the book are available on a website for readers to freely download and use. ‘Presenting’ includes practical information and helpful tips for software, all statistical methods used, and the research process. It is written by three experienced biostatisticians, Janet Peacock, Sally Kerry, and Ray Balise from the UK and the USA, and is born out of their extensive experience conducting collaborative medical research, teaching medical students, physicians, and other health professionals, and providing researchers with advice.


Author(s):  
Lei Liu ◽  
Peng Wang ◽  
Su-Qin Jiang ◽  
Zi-Rong Zhong ◽  
Ting-Zheng Zhan ◽  
...  

Abstract Background This study aims to understand whether there is a seasonal change in the internet search interest for Toxoplasma by using the data derived from Google Trends (GT). Methods The present study searched for the relative search volume (RSV) for the search term ‘Toxoplasma’ in GT within six major English-speaking countries (Australia, New Zealand [Southern Hemisphere] and Canada, Ireland, the UK and the USA [Northern Hemisphere] from 1 January 2004 to 31 December 2019, utilizing the category of ‘health’. Data regarding the RSV of Toxoplasma was obtained and further statistical analysis was performed in R software using the ‘season’ package. Results There were significantly seasonal patterns for the RSV of the search term ‘Toxoplasma’ in five countries (all p&lt;0.05), except for the UK. A peak in December–March and a trough in July–September (Canada, Ireland, the UK and the USA) were observed, while a peak in June/August and a trough in December/February (Australia, New Zealand) were also found. Moreover, the presence of seasonal patterns regarding RSV for ‘Toxoplasma’ between the Southern and Northern Hemispheres was also found (both p&lt;0.05), with a reversed meteorological month. Conclusions Overall, our study revealed the seasonal variation for Toxoplasma in using internet search data from GT, providing additional evidence on seasonal patterns in Toxoplasma.


2019 ◽  
Vol 30 (4) ◽  
pp. 513-531 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Walters ◽  
Michael Quinlan

The activism of coalmining unions in Australia, the UK, the USA and elsewhere securing improvements in safety including better legislation in the 19th and 20th centuries, has been widely researched and acknowledged. However, a relatively neglected aspect of this history was a campaign to secure worker inspectors (check-inspectors). These began in coalmining a century before similar measures were introduced for workers more generally as part of overhauling occupational health and safety laws in the 1970s/1980s. We document this struggle for mine safety in Australia and New Zealand, and the activities of check-inspectors in the period to 1925. Notwithstanding strong opposition from coal-owners and conservative governments, check-inspectors played an important role in safeguarding coalminers and improving the regulatory oversight of coalmines. Check-inspectors not only gave coalminers a ‘voice’ in OHS, but they also provided an exemplar of the value and legitimacy of worker’s ‘knowledge activism’. This system remains. Furthermore, the struggle is relevant to understanding contemporary debates about collective worker involvement in occupational health and safety. JEL Codes: J28, J51, J81


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dingtao Hu ◽  
Xiaoqi Lou ◽  
Nana Meng ◽  
Qiaomei Xie ◽  
Man Zhang ◽  
...  

Abstract Background: The outcomes of smoking have generated considerable clinical interest in recent years. Although people from different countries are more interested in the topic of quit smoking during the winter, few studies have tested this hypothesis. The current study aimed to quantify public interest in quitting smoking via Google.Methods: We use Google Trends to obtain the Internet search query volume for terms relating to quit smoking in major northern and southern hemisphere countries in this research. Normally search volumes for the term “quit smoking + stop smoking + smoking-cessation” were retrieved within the USA, the UK, Canada, Ireland, New Zealand and Australia from January 2004 to December 2018. Seasonal effects were investigated using cosinor analysis and seasonal decomposition of time series models.Results: Significant seasonal variation patterns in those search terms were revealed by cosinor analysis and demonstrated by the evidence from Google Trends analysis in the representative countries including the USA (pcos = 2.36×10-7), the UK (pcos < 2.00×10-16), Canada (pcos < 2.00×10-16), Ireland (pcos <2.00×10-16) ,Australia (pcos = 5.13×10-6) and New Zealand (pcos = 4.87×10-7). Time series plots emphasized the consistency of seasonal trends with peaks in winter / late autumn by repeating in nearly all years. The overall trend of search volumes for quitting smoking, observed by dynamic series analysis, has declined from 2004 to 2018.Conclusions: The preliminary evidence from Google Trends search tool showed a significant seasonal variation and a decreasing trend for the RSV of quit smoking. Our novel findings in smoking-cessation epidemiology need to be verified with further studies, and the mechanisms underlying these findings must be clarified.


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