Acttra SWD Bait Formulation Against Drosophila Suzukii and its Compatibility with Berry Pollination by the Honey Bee, Apis Mellifera

Crop protection substances are continuously developed to prevent the decimation of non-target insect populations through insecticide use. The bait formulation Acttra SWD was created to attract the adult spotted-wing drosophila, a generalist pest of berries, and when mixed with insecticide would cause a reduction in the volume of insecticide applied, thus avoiding a complete coverage of crops and resulting in economic and ecological benefits to society. However, Acttra SWD has some compounds, including sugars and fruit odors, that might attract non-target fauna, especially insect pollinators. Therefore this study aimed (1) to investigate if Acttra SWD mixed with the recommended pesticide, i.e. spinosad (Entrust), is attractive to the honey bee, which is extensively used for berry pollination and (2) to evaluate the insecticidal activity of Acttra/Entrust in oral and contact tests on the same species. In all replicates, most foragers rejected feeders that offered Acttra/Entrust, and some switched to Acttra/Entrust-free feeders. Accordingly, mortality caused by this mixture in oral tests was low and did not differ from control, since the majority of bees did not consume the Acttra/Entrust treatment. However, mortality caused by this mixture was higher than in control groups in topical tests. Our results indicate that honey bees will not be attracted to and poisoned by crops sprayed with Acttra/Entrust, but contact with the bait would result in lethal or sub-lethal effects.

THE ENTOMOPHYLIC FUNGI STUDY IN THE PRYMORYE (RUSSIAN FAR EAST)

After a long break, research on entomophylic fungi has been restarted in the Prymorye. Earlier surveys showed an exceptional species diversity of the territory - about 70 species. This is 20-25% of the total species number known in the world. This group of fungi is given unjustifiably little attention in our region. They significantly affect the dynamics of insect populations in the ecosystem. In addition, the use of compounds produced by entomophylic fungi in medicine is gaining increasing popularity. We studied 31 samples from the collection of entomophilic fungi of the Far Eastern Regional Herbarium (VLA). The analysis of the obtained data allowed us to clarify the distribution and diversity of entomophilic species in the Region. Data on the distribution of Cordyceps deflectens, C. militaris, C. takaomontana, Ophiocordyceps crinalis, O. nutans, O. sphecocephala, O. tricentri and O. variabilis have been clarified and supplemented. For O. tricentri data on the spectrum of host insects are expanded.

Five years of Alpine Entomology, the international journal on mountain insects

Similar to many other species groups, insects are affected by the biodiversity crisis caused by land use and climate changes, over or under use of resources, pollution, and invasive alien species (IPBES 2019). After the famous Krefeld study, which highlighted a loss of 75% of the insect biomass over the last 27 years in protected areas in Germany (Hallmann et al. 2017), further scientific articles and reviews have been published on this topic (e.g., Seibold et al. 2019; Wagner 2020). Nowadays, it is obvious, that the diversity and biomass of insects are strongly threatened globally. Nevertheless, not all insect populations are decreasing. Some thermophilous species can benefit from climate change and hence expand their population size and their distribution (e.g., Roth et al. 2021). There are also examples of increasing insect populations due to successful conservation measures (e.g., Walter et al. 2017). A comprehensive recent study published in a Swiss Academic Report (Widmer et al. 2021) concluded that conservation measures are urgently needed to avoid dramatic losses of insects and the valuable ecosystem services they provide. This is necessary for all activity sectors such as agriculture, forestry, and energy production. Among other measures, this report recommends an intensification of species monitoring and research activities in entomology, and an improvement in knowledge transfer. Our journal, Alpine Entomology, fulfills this goal extremely well. As an open-access journal, we aim at publishing inter alia research and review articles, short communications and checklists on arthropods not only from the Alps but also from other mountainous regions. In doing so, we contribute to the dissemination of knowledge on insects to a broad audience. For example, more than twenty articles published in Alpine Entomology since 2017 have acquired more than 2’000 unique views. To improve the international impact and scientific quality of Alpine Entomology, we can now count on our recently formed editorial board. The board members will act as ambassadors for our journal outside of Switzerland, as well as support us in our strategic decisions. Our Editorial board is currently composed of the following people: Prof. Dr. Thibault Lachat, Editor in chief, Bern University of Applied Sciences Dr. Oliver Martin, President of the Swiss Entomological Society, ETH Zurich Dr. Yves Basset, Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute, Panama Prof. Dr. Inon Scharf, Tel Aviv University PD Dr. Seraina Klopfstein, Natural History Museum, Basel Prof. Dr. Lyubomir Penev, Managing Director and Founder of Pensoft Publishers We are open to extending this board by inviting a few additional members, and especially hope to recruit international researchers working in regions not currently represented. A few weeks ago, we launched our first topical collection, a step that should also help to increase the attractivity of our journal. This collection is focused on arthropods associated with aquatic ecosystems in mountainous regions. Aquatic ecosystems and especially running waters represent some of the most impacted environments on the planet. Furthermore, aquatic invertebrates are key indicators of global or local changes, and many aquatic ecosystems are closely linked to mountains as they originate in them. With this open collection, Alpine Entomology now provides authors with an opportunity to submit manuscripts based on already available data with clear evidence for changes/trends in aquatic arthropods (even where sampling designs were not initially conceived for this goal). Such studies would be highly relevant to improving our understanding of developments concerning arthropod populations and knowledge of aquatic species. With this initiative, we aim to provide a platform for scientists to publish research articles or short notes on trends and/or changes in biogeography, species community or distribution, as well as behavior, or morphology of aquatic arthropods from mountainous regions. The editors of this collection (Jean-Luc Gattolliat and Dávid Murányi) will be inviting authors to submit their manuscript and will offer a fee waiver for invited contributions. The topical collection is also open to relevant additional contributions (for details see https://alpineentomology.pensoft.net/special_issues). Over the next months, we plan to launch further topical collections and therefore hope to offer attractive avenues for researchers to publish their results in our journal. The editorial board will be involved in evaluating suggestions for future topics, as well as recruiting new topics in a targeted fashion. After five years of existence, Alpine Entomology has already surmounted different challenges. Since 2019, our journal has been indexed in Emerging Sources Citation by Clarivate Analytics and since 2020, we are also indexed by Scopus. One of our goals for the next years will be to obtain an impact factor from Clarivate. This would provide a clear signal that our journal is well established and recognized in the scientific community. To reach this goal, we need to recruit and secure a consistent flow of manuscripts aiming at ca. 20–25 published papers per year. Of course, the quality of our published articles must also be guaranteed. Fortunately, for this we can continue to count on the strong support of our expert subject editors and the numerous reviewers. Here, we would like to take the opportunity to thank all those involved for their essential contributions to our journal over the years since its creation.

Postmortem Evaluation of Rabbit Carcasses Using Insect Populations in Keffi Nasarawa State, Nigeria

Untimely, forceful, and unexpected death is inevitable and common worldwide. Evidence for causes of death may be obtained through the knowledge of insects’ successional pattern and postmortem interval on dead carcasses. Two rabbits (Lepus cuniculus) weighing 2.5 kg each were used as the experimental animals. The rabbits were sacrificed by poisoning and stabbing, postmortem evaluation was achieved by taking record of the insect’s successional pattern. The insects’ successional pattern revealed the following insects’ species in order in which they arrived on the carcasses: Musca domestica, Lucilia sericata, Chrysomya albiceps, Dermestes maculatus, and Armadillidium vulgare (usual sp). The family Formicidae were represented by two unidentified species. M. domestica arrived first on the stabbed carcass while L. sericata on poisoned carcass. A total of 105±50 insects were collected throughout the study period, with stabbed rabbit contributing 61±10 and poisoned 44±60 insects’ species. Variation in the number of forensically important insects’ species encountered in the study site did not show any significant difference (p>0.05) in relation to each decomposition stage. There was however a significant difference (p<0.05) between insects’ relative abundance and mode of killing. Insect evidence was found 3 minutes after death on the stabbed carcass and 3 days after on the poisoned carcass. The study has shown that insects' population can be used to establish postmortem evidence in rabbit carcasses.

A macromutation eliminates colour patterning in captive butterflies

Captive populations often harbor variation that is not present in the wild due to artificial selection. Recent efforts to map this variation have provided insights into the genetic and molecular basis of variation. Heliconius butterflies display a large array of pattern variants in the wild and the genetic basis of these patterns has been well-described. Here we sought to identify the genetic basis of an unusual pattern variant that is instead found in captivity, the ivory mutant, in which all scales on both the wings and body become white or yellow. Using a combination of autozygosity mapping and coverage analysis from 37 captive individuals, we identify a 78kb deletion at the cortex wing patterning locus as the ivory mutation. This deletion is undetected among 458 wild Heliconius genomes samples, and its dosage explains both homozygous and heterozygous ivory phenotypes found in captivity. The deletion spans a large 5' region of the cortex gene that includes a facultative 5' UTR exon detected in larval wing disk transcriptomes. CRISPR mutagenesis of this exon replicates the wing phenotypes from coding knock-outs of cortex, consistent with a functional role of ivory-deleted elements in establishing scale color fate. Population demographics reveal that the stock giving rise to the ivory mutant has a mixed origin from across the wild range of H. melpomene, and supports a scenario where the ivory mutation occurred after the introduction of cortex haplotypes from Ecuador. Homozygotes for the ivory deletion are inviable, joining 40 other examples of allelic variants that provide heterozygous advantage in animal populations under artificial selection by fanciers and breeders. Finally, our results highlight the promise of autozygosity and association mapping for identifying the genetic basis of aberrant mutations in captive insect populations.

Domestic Filth Flies in New Haven, Connecticut: A Case Study on the Effects of Urbanization and Climate Change by Comparing Fly Populations after 78 Years

Changes in common and widespread insect populations such as the domestic filth fly in urban cities are useful and relevant bioindicators for overall changes in the insect biomass. The current study surveyed necrophagous flies by placing a weekly trap from June–September over a two-year period in the city of New Haven, Connecticut, to compare data on fly abundance and diversity with data collected 78 years earlier. Climate and land cover changes were also assessed in combination with the fly population for each period. The survey results suggest the domestic filth fly population is now less diverse with decreased species richness and changes in the relative abundance of species. In both surveys, 95–96% of the population was composed of only three species. The current survey data indicate the numerical dominance of Lucilia sericata has decreased, the abundance of several species, notably Lucilia coeruleiviridis, has increased, and Lucilia illustris is absent. Species that showed a significant interaction with temperature in the 1940s survey have now increased in abundance, with several of the trapped species continuing to show an interaction with temperature and rainfall. Analysis of the land cover and climate data characterizes the trap site as a region exposed to a prolonged period of industrialization and urbanization, with only 7% of the land cover remaining undeveloped and over 50% impervious, coupled with an increase in temperature and rainfall. This study serves as a model for changes in domestic filth fly populations and other insects in similarly highly urbanized established cities.

Experimental evidence for neonicotinoid driven decline in aquatic emerging insects

There is an ongoing unprecedented loss in insects, both in terms of richness and biomass. The usage of pesticides, especially neonicotinoid insecticides, has been widely suggested to be a contributor to this decline. However, the risks of neonicotinoids to natural insect populations have remained largely unknown due to a lack of field-realistic experiments. Here, we used an outdoor experiment to determine effects of field-realistic concentrations of the commonly applied neonicotinoid thiacloprid on the emergence of naturally assembled aquatic insect populations. Following application, all major orders of emerging aquatic insects (Coleoptera, Diptera, Ephemeroptera, Odonata, and Trichoptera) declined strongly in both abundance and biomass. At the highest concentration (10 µg/L), emergence of most orders was nearly absent. Diversity of the most species-rich family, Chironomidae, decreased by 50% at more commonly observed concentrations (1 µg/L) and was generally reduced to a single species at the highest concentration. Our experimental findings thereby showcase a causal link of neonicotinoids and the ongoing insect decline. Given the urgency of the insect decline, our results highlight the need to reconsider the mass usage of neonicotinoids to preserve freshwater insects as well as the life and services depending on them.