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Dispersal of Stable Flies |
Illinois State Representatives: Scott
Isard*, Mike Irwin**,
and Gail Kampmeier***
*Dept. of Geography, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
**,***Dept. of Natural Resources & Environmental Sciences,
UIUC
and Illinois Natural History Survey*,**,***
Dispersal of Stable Flies [Carl J. Jones (UI Dept. of Veterinary Pathobiology), David A.R. Kristovich (Illinois State Water Survey), and Scott A. Isard (UI Dept. of Geography) with cooperators from Michigan [Edward Walker, Richard Merritt, and Stuart Gage (MSU Dept. of Entomology) and Jerome A. Hogsette (USDA-ARS-MAVERL)].
NSF Proposal: Arthropod transport and dispersal by atmospheric circulation study. $1,246,888 over 3-years. Submitted to NSF Division of Environmental Biology, Ecological Studies, Ecology with joint funding sought from the Division of Atmospheric Sciences.
Brief overview of justification/objectives. Stable flies are an important nuisance pest to humans and a major constraint to cattle production in the Midwest. For example, stable flies frequently inundate beaches along the shores of the Great Lakes each summer. Landing counts of these flies on humans have been observed to exceed 100 flies/min on beaches of the Great Lakes, brutally biting humans and having important impacts on human health and local tourism. Most of the beaches where high stable fly concentrations have been observed are far from livestock areas where reproduction is thought to occur. Therefore, it has been hypothesized that these biting flies reach the beaches through a combination of insect behaviors and atmospheric motions. The proposed research seeks to combine the expertise of aerobiologists, boundary layer meteorologists, entomologists, and experts in stable fly dispersal research and livestock extension, to develop a better understanding of the source regions for the insects and how they are brought to beach areas. It is proposed that a field research program be conducted to 1) determine whether the stable flies that concentrate on beaches are of local or distant origin and 2) identify the atmospheric motion systems that contribute to the frequent high concentration of stable flies, and other insects, on the coastlines of the Great Lakes.
Related publications over the past year:
Isard, S.A., D.A.R. Kristovich, S.H. Gage, C.J. Jones, and N.F. Laird. 1998. Atmospheric motion systems that influence the redistribution and accumulation of insects on the beaches of the Great Lakes in North America. Physical Aerobiology.
Jones, C.J., J. Hogsette, S.A. Isard, Y-J Guo, G. Greene and A.B. Broce. 1998. Using phenology to detect dispersal of stable flies in southwestern Kansas. Pages 348-351 in Proceedings of the 13th Conference on Biometeorology and Aerobiology, American Meteorological Society, Boston, MA.
1999 Jones, C.J., S.A. Isard, and M.R. Cortinas, 1999. Dispersal of synanthropic Diptera: Lessons from the past and technology for the future. Annals of the Entomological Society of America. (in press).
This page was constructed by Gail Kampmeier at gkamp[at]uiuc.edu
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