1998 NCR-148 Meeting Summary

Migration and Dispersal of Insects and Other Biotic Agents
Las Vegas Hilton
Las Vegas, NV
November 10, 1998
Gail E. Kampmeier, submitted December 1998

Casey Hoy (OH) chaired the 12th annual meeting of NCR-148. Nineteen scientists from AZ, CO, CT, IA, IL, MI, NE, NY, OH, OK, SC, TX, and Saipan (Northern Mariana Islands) attended the NCR-148 meeting, including Administrative Advisor Michael Chippendale. Richard Hellmich (IA) will chair the committee in 1999 and Scott Isard (IL) was elected to serve as chair in 2000. Gail Kampmeier (IL) will continue to serve as Secretary/Treasurer in 1999 and was re-elected to the post for 2000. NCR-148 will meet next either at North Carolina State University or Michigan State University in late October 1999.

Members were welcomed and introductions made around the table. Also participating in this meeting with an eye to future collaborative efforts were members of WCC-060 (Pesticide Resistance) and WCC-066 (Russian Wheat aphid and Greenbug consortium) (see below for discussion).

Subcommittees

Mike Irwin, Stuart Gage, and John Westbrook were appointed to the NCR-148 awards committee for 1999.
Tom Holtzer and David Byrne comprised the site selection committee for 1999.

John Westbrook, Rich Hellmich, and Charlie Main were appointed to the nominations committee. Nominees for chair for 2000 were Bill Hutchison (MN) and Scott Isard (IL). With no nominations from the floor, the vote went to paper ballot.

NCR-148 will be up for renewal in 2000. During 1999, a committee formed of the past (David Byrne), current (Casey Hoy), and future (Rick Hellmich) chairs will develop a 4-year renewal project proposal for input by the membership at the 1999 meeting. The revised draft will be presented to NCA-15 in early 2000.

Advisor Reports.

Unable to attend the NCR-148 meeting, Rick Meyer, our CSREES representative, gave a written update to Michael Chippendale, our Administrative Advisor. The Administrative Advisor report included good news on the funding front of a 23% increase in the federal budget for agriculture, including a more than 7% increase in Hatch funding and 3% in Smith-Lever funding. No appropriations were made for the Fund for Rural America. New plans of work to be implemented for the new research initiative in the farm bill will be increased peer review and greater stakeholder input (through deans advisory councils).

Movement & Dispersal-Related Meetings held.

The 1998 NCR-148 meeting was held in conjunction with the joint Entomological Society of America (ESA) and American Phytopathological Society annual meeting and a joint ESA/APS program symposium organized by Michael Irwin (IL) & Don Aylor (CT), Aerial Dispersal of Pests, Diseases, and their Natural Enemies: Implications for the Development and Deployment of Integrated Pest Management Strategies (see Appendix B for presentations). At the symposium, audience members were encouraged to attend the NCR-148 meeting in the evening.

A joint NCR-148 and Alliance for Aerobiology Research (AFAR) symposium entitled Weather Data Requirements For Integrated Pest Management, was organized by John Westbrook and Scott Isard at the 13th Conference of Biometeorology and Aerobiology for the annual meeting of the American Meteorological Society in Albuquerque, NM on 6 November 1998.

6th International Congress on Aerobiology was held in Perugia, Italy 31 August­5 September 1998. Scott Isard, Charlie Main, Estelle Levetin, Paul Comtois, and Christine Rogers (AFAR), all presented papers at this conference.

Upcoming Conferences.

Aerobiology '99, the annual symposium of the Pan-American Aerobiology Association will be held in Tucson, AZ on 28 May-1 June 1999 at the DuVall Auditorium at the Arizona Health Science Center on the University of Arizona campus http://www.arizona.edu/. Electronic submission of abstracts, registration, etc. may be done through the PAAA website: http://www.paaa.org/

The 14th Conference of Biometeorology and Aerobiology of the American Meteorological Society will be held in northern California (Sacramento or Davis) in the fall of 2000. Scott Isard is the program coordinator for that meeting.

The 7th International Congress on Aerobiology will be held in 2002 in Québec as a joint meeting with the Pan-American Aerobiology Association (PAAA). Scott Isard is on the Executive Committee and Paul Comtois (International Association for Aerobiology president) and Estelle Levetin (PAAA president) are organizers for the meeting. NCR-148 members were invited to help establish a framework for the Congress.

Other Business.

Home Page. NCR-148 has had a home page on the World Wide Web since spring of 1995. Browsers can reach various other migration & dispersal related sites from our home page. The site address has been simplified: http://www.inhs.uiuc.edu/cee/movement/

Pollen Forecasts for Mountain Cedar are now available three days a week during December and January at http://www.bio.utulsa.edu/~leveties/FORECAST.html This forecast was developed jointly by scientists at the University of Tulsa and North Carolina State University. They utilize meteorological information from the Oklahoma Mesonet as well as trajectories provided by Air Resources Laboratory of NOAA.

Treasurer's Report. As of November 1998, the account for NCR-148 at the University of Illinois has $427.32 from dues collected in previous years. No dues were assessed for this meeting. The only expenditure during the year was $40 for Adobe PageMill™ 3.0 for website maintenance (see home page above). Because we have ceased sending out hard copy of minutes and other notices, the costs associated with this committee have become primarily those associated with the meeting venue.

Interactions with WCC-060 and WCC-066
Tom Brown, chair of WCC-060, the Pesticide Resistance group stated that this group started in 1985 as multidisciplinary group of weed scientists, plant pathologists, and entomologists that was national in scope and with the participation of industry. WCC-060 has not yet addressed dispersal issues, but they are interested in the distribution of resistant weeds and resistant phenotypes. WCC-060 generally meets in early spring and sends out a newsletter http://www.msstate.edu/Entomology/EntHome.html to about 2000 subscribers.

WCC-060 is interested in resistance to pyrethroids and discerning the origins of the resistance. For example, Bt cotton controls only 80% of cotton bollworms (Helicoverpa zea) and the migratory rush from the south overcomes the Bt cotton, so growers must spray pyrethroids. In 1997, 10% of the crop was sprayed; in 1998, 20% and it is projected that in 1999, 70% will be sprayed. IREC is monitoring the apparent increase in tolerance of H. zea to Bt and the resistance that is appearing to pyrethroids.

Type Culture Collection for Insects. The idea of a type culture collection for insects was broached. Currently the tools to study long term changes in populations exist, but insect material has never been archived in a systematic manner to permit these kinds of studies. Yet questions of resistance development and markers for long-range transport of arthropods have plagued growers, IPM programs, and industry for a long time. GenBank exists for collecting gene sequences, but only the sequences are submitted and there is no repository for insects to be tested in the future. A systematic area-wide and long-term collection of arthropod genetic material could be a valuable resource for research on pesticide resistance and arthropod migration and dispersal by permitting estimates of gene flow and comparison of sampled populations with an historical database.

A joint workshop was proposed to develop the concept of a type culture collection, the methodologies needed, potential funding sources, etc. at the next ESA meeting in Atlanta, GA (Dec. 1999). Members of NCR-148, WCC-060, and WCC-066 would coordinate the workshop (organized as an informal conference), which should also involve members of NC-205, Sections A (Systematics) and B (Physiology) of ESA (other sections as well), EPA, APHIS. Suggestions for other groups with an interest in this workshop should be submitted to Tom Brown (WCC-060). Also on the organizing committee are Casey Hoy, David Byrne, Stuart Gage, Tom Holtzer (WCC-066 & NCR-148), Mark Whalon (WCC-060 & NCR-148), and Marie Jasieniuk (WCC-060).

Initial topics for discussion at the workshop were tendered: envisioning where and how to go about the process of developing a type culture collection for insects; how many individuals should be archived per species? anticipation of future needs; guidelines; mandates; long-term care; proposing that initial target species should be limited and organisms chosen that span different scales such as whiteflies, Colorado potato beetle, corn earworm, western corn rootworm, biological control candidates.

State & Agency Reports

Arizona. Although populations of Bemesia tabaci have been controlled recently through the use of imidacloprid, developing resistance has pointed out the need to continually search for options to one-dimensional control strategies. Biological control by whitefly natural enemies such as parasitic wasps, like the native Eretmocerus eremicus, are very important in several crops where levels of whitefly parasitism as high as 80% have been reported. One way of deploying these natural enemies is to establish refuges, although their placement needs to be determined. Researchers in Arizona have initiated investigations concerning flight behavior by Er. eremicus. Preliminary results clearly indicate that there is a statistically significant difference in observed flight between males (av. = 1 min., max. = 10 min., n = 30) and females (av. = 19 min., max. = 93 min., n = 52). Initial results also suggest that there exist two distinctive populations within females of short-duration flyers (<20 min.) and long-duration flyers (>25 min.).

Illinois scientists have been monitoring an increasingly prevalent strain of the western corn rootworm (WCR) that lays its eggs outside of corn fields, specifically soybean fields that have been traditionally used in crop rotation to eliminate this pest. They have found that intrafield movement (between corn and soybean) of adults occurs early in the morning from corn to soybean and reverses late in the morning back to corn and again in late evening back to the soybean fields. Because WCR that eat soybean exclusively have arrested development and are unable to reproduce properly, Illinois scientists are working with cucurbitacins to arrest their movement in soybean fields.

Iowa scientists are looking at the implications of adult movement of the European cornborer. They have a new visiting scientist from the Institute of Plant Protection in Beijing working with them that had worked on the Asian cornborer. Long distance movement was not found for this latter species.

Michigan has a new computational ecology and visualization laboratory, which will concentrate on long range movement of organisms, biodiversity in agroecosystems, and regional crop productivity models for the North Central region of the US. They have developed institutional linkages with the San Diego Supercomputer Center, the National Center for Resource Innovations, and the Chinese Ecosystem Research Organization.

Minnesota scientists, in cooperation with researchers in Wisconsin, have documented alfalfa blotch leafminer (Diptera: Agromyzidae) in over 123 counties in North Dakota, Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Illinois, and in much of Manitoba, Canada. In 1998, a simple diffusion model developed the previous year was tested and a forecast map made available to Extension and Dept. of Agriculture personnel. The map, as part of a color brochure providing diagnostic photographs and biology information, proved to be very useful throughout the year.

Nebraska scientists report that corn rootworm insecticide resistance to methyl parathion does not seem to be spreading yet. Wheat curl mites and their associated wheat streak disease have been increasing in the last 20 years due to an increase in irrigated corn in the region. They have been working on determining that factors trigger mite movement from oversummering hosts to wheat in the fall. Nebraskan scientists also report that pest problems have been up dramatically in the last 3-4 years because of mild winters. Potato leafhoppers caused significant damage in alfalfa and dry beans in 1997. Grasshoppers were also extremely destructive in 1997 peaking to a point where they ate paint off of houses. The sugarbeet root aphid (Pemphigus populivenae Fitch) was found to migrate to the Rocky Mountains for winter.

New York scientists have continued their studies of long distance movement of fungi using radio-controlled airplane drones. They trapped ascospores of Fusarium at 500 ft above ground level (AGL) and are looking for a marked strain of the fungus to track from a source. They have also trapped late blight sporangia at 200 ft AGL (1 sporangium/cu m air). In cooperation with Charlie Main from North Carolina State University, fluorescent dust was released and tracked using the aircraft. Don Aylor (Connecticut Agricultural Experiment Station) is interested in collaborating on these experiments.

North Carolina State University's North American Blue Mold Forecast Center http://www.ces.ncsu.edu/depts/pp/bluemold/ completed its fourth year of service to tobacco producers, industry and extension services throughout North America. During the height of this year's epidemic in June and July, more than 10 active and geographically distinct source regions were being monitored and tracked for their potential to infect uninfected target regions. In addition, samples submitted for strain testing were found to be largely resistant to metalaxyl (fungicide). This model system has tremendous implications for the transport of other types of fungal spores and allergens and monitoring the spread of resistant genotypes. Researchers have cooperated in the mountain cedar pollen forecasting project in Oklahoma (see above) and the cucurbit downy mildew forecasting project in California.

Ohio scientists have developed a model for aster yellow phytoplasma epidemiology, which starts with immigrating aster leafhoppers (Macrosteles quadrilineatus Forbes). Model predictions of the results of season-long control strategies were compared with observed values in a large plot study. Effective monitoring of arriving migrants, measuring the proportion that are inoculative with the disease, and determining when immigration ends are all required components for an integrated control strategy.

Saipan (Northern Marianas Islands) is located 15° north of the equator and temperatures are 75-80° F all the time, so the selection pressure is not to move. A novel flight monitor uses the sun as a light source, a solar cell as a photo sensor, and a waveform recorder to look at the wingbeat frequency signature of insects flying between the sun and the sensor. The monitor is being tested for various species of insects.

Texas researchers investigated the effect of prevailing wind direction on the spatial distribution of boll weevils per day using pheromone traps deployed around the perimeter of dryland cotton fields near Caldwell and Waller, TX. Boll weevils trapped in pheromone traps were marked with a unique color of paint and released. Marked weevils were recaptured at a maximum distance of 7 miles and maximum duration of 22 days after release.

Present at the meeting (*state representatives)
Don Aylor, Connecticut Agricultural Experiment Station
Thomas Brown, Clemson University, WCC-060
Denny Bruck, Iowa State University, for Richard Hellmich (IA)
David Byrne, University of Arizona (AZ)*
Mike Chippendale, University of Missouri-Columbia, Administrative Advisor to NCR-148
Jesus Esquivel, USDA-ARS-APMRU, College Station, TX
Stuart Gage, Michigan State University, (MI)*
Matt Greenstone, USDA-ARS-PSWCRL, Stillwater, OK, WCC-066 (1999 chair) & NCR-148
Gary Hein, University of Nebraska, (NE)*
Tom Holtzer, Colorado State University, WCC-066 & NCR-148 (CO)*
Casey Hoy, Ohio State University (OH)* (1998 chair)
Mike Irwin, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, (co-IL)*
Scott Isard, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, (co-IL)*
Gail Kampmeier, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Aubrey Moore, Saipan, Northern Mariana Islands
Tom Sappington, USDA-ARS, IFNRRU, Weslaco, TX
Elson Shields, Cornell University, (NY)*
Joe Spencer, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Dale Spurgeon, USDA-ARS-APMRU, College Station, TX
John Westbrook, USDA-ARS-APMRU, College Station (TX)*

state representatives absent from this meeting
Tim Casey (NJ)
Gerrit Cuperus (OK)
Abner Hammond (co-LA)
Rich Hellmich (IA)
Bill Hutchison (co-MN)
Armon Keaster (MO) (emeritus)
Seth Johnson (co-LA)
Charles Main (NC)
Ken Ostlie (co-MN)
Jim Venette (ND)