1999 NCR-148 Meeting Summary

Migration and Dispersal of Insects and Other Biotic Agents
Brownstone Hotel
Raleigh, NC
November 1-3, 1999
Gail E. Kampmeier, submitted December 1999

Bell tower at North Carolina State University

Scott Isard (IL) co-chaired the 14th annual meeting of NCR-148, with Richard Hellmich (IA), who was unable to attend but had prepared the agenda. Eighteen scientists from AZ, IL, MI, MO, NC, NE, NY, and OH, attended the NCR-148 meeting, including Administrative Advisor Michael Chippendale and CSREES representative, Rick Meyer. Local arrangements were graciously provided by Charlie Main (NC), and Tom Keever (NC), as well as by Jim Harper and O.W. Barnett (heads respectively of the Dept. of Entomology and Dept. Plant Pathology at North Carolina State University). The departments hosted a reception (pictures, may load slowly) for faculty and students on the first evening of the meeting.

Richard Hellmich (IA) will co-chair the committee in 2000 with Scott Isard (IL). Gary Hein (NE) was elected to serve as chair in 2001. Gail Kampmeier (IL) will continue to serve as Secretary/Treasurer in 2000 and will then step down after 15 years of service as Secretary/Treasurer, passing the baton to Rufus Isaacs (MI), who hopes that his sentence is not for a similarly long period. Kampmeier will continue to host the migration and dispersal website on the Illinois Natural History Survey server, with documents prepared by the Secretary.

NCR-148 will meet next at Michigan State University in late October 2000, hosted by Rufus Isaacs and Stuart Gage.

Members were welcomed and introductions made around the table. Several visitors from NCSU participated in the meetings for various periods of time (see list at end of this document).

Subcommittees

Awards. David Byrne and Casey Hoy were appointed to the NCR-148 awards committee for 2000.

Site. Scott Isard, Rufus Isaacs, and Elson Shields comprised the site selection committee for the meeting in 2000. The initial suggestion of the committee, meeting with Biometeorology & Aerobiology Conference at UC-Davis in August 2000, was discarded as too close to the International Congress of Entomology and still in the middle of field season for many others. Alternatively, Rufus Isaacs offered to co-host the meeting with Stuart Gage in East Lansing at Michigan State in the latter half of October where the NCR-148 participants will be able to visit Isaac's small fruits lab and Gage's ecological visualization & computational lab.

Nominations. David Byrne, Mike Irwin, and Gary Hein were appointed to the nominations committee. One candidate for chair and Secretary/Treasurer were nominated for 2001 and both were declared winners by acclamation.

Treasury. We have $422.64 in the coffers, most of which will be used up to pay for the meeting. A dues of $30 was assessed to each member attending.

Renewal. With 1998 chair Casey Hoy taking the lead, the committee, consisting of David Byrne (97 chair), Rich Hellmich (99 chair), Scott Isard (2000 chair), and Gail Kampmeier (ex officio), collaborated on the first major revision to the renewal document for NCR-148 that would be presented at the 1999 meeting for further revision.

Advisor Reports.

Mike Chippendale, Administrative Advisor to NCR-148, discussed the renewal process, stating that the criteria were posted at the North Central Region's website. He emphasized that we should keep in mind the impact of the research programs, the accountability of research and extension, and examine the compelling reasons to continue NCR-148, because it is not automatic that the projects get renewed. The fact that NCR-148 members often form multidisciplinary and multi-institutional collaborations is a definite strength.

Rick Meyer, CSREES Representative, stated that NCA-15 looks at all of the projects each year and the only detracting comment for NCR-148 has been that it has been rather diffused and that we needed to provide reviewers with some focus of activities.

Meyer gave an update from CSREES, citing some significant increases in pest management monies, but that the source of funds is no longer from entitlement programs but an integrated, competitive grants program that is open to all institutions, not just land grant institutions. Funding sources are available related to the food quality protection act. The Crops at Risk program (short term critical response) and Risk Avoidance and Mitigation Program (=RAMP, dealing with longer term issues), both pose potential funding opportunities for migration & dispersal research and NCR-148 can have input on the RFP (request for proposals) within CSREES. Contacts would be Rick Meyer and Dennis Kopp for entomology and Robin Huettle for plant pathology.

There will be an external review of all CSREES units within the next 6 months, all the while they will be moving into a new building starting December 1999 and are already having problems with email and phone.

Movement & Dispersal-Related Meetings held.

Aerobiology '99, the annual symposium of the Pan-American Aerobiology Association was 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. See results of the meeting at the PAAA website: http://www.paaa.org

The special issue of Agricultural & Forest Meteorology (Elsevier) is now available on the web at http://www.elsevier.nl/inca/publications/store/5/0/3/2/9/5/ (choose 97(4), 30-November-1999) through 31 December 1999 to everyone and after that to institutions with subscriptions to that journal. This issue features papers from the NCR-148 and AFAR sponsored symposium entitled: "Aerial Dispersal of Pests, Diseases, and Their Natural Enemies: Implications for the Development and Deployment of Integrated Pest Management Strategies," organized by Don Aylor and Mike Irwin at last year's joint meeting of the Entomological Society of America and American Phytopathological Society in Las Vegas.

Upcoming Conferences & Workshops.

NCR-148 and WCC-060 will jointly sponsor a workshop at the Entomological Society of America annual meeting in Atlanta, GA entitled "Dispersal of Insecticide Resistance in Helicoverpa virescens", 14 December 1999.

Charlie Main was invited to speak at the 2nd European Aerobiology meeting in Vienna, Austria, 5-9 September 2000.

Other Business.

Renewal. NCR-148 is up for renewal in 2000. Casey Hoy presented a draft renewal document that had undergone one revision with input from past (Byrne) and future (Hellmich & Isard) chairs and the Secretary (Kampmeier). The draft was distributed on the first day of the meeting and portions metted out to various members for reworking overnight. These new revisions were then reviewed and edited by the entire group on the second day by projecting them from the computer to a screen, a process that worked very well for honing thoughts into suitable language. Isard is putting together the pieces and adding information about publications before sending the draft to Eldon Ortman and Dick Lower in the NCRA (North Central Regional Association of Agricultural Experiment Station Directors) office. The renewal needs the approval of both NCA-15 (North Central Regional Administrators) and NCRA.

Award. Gail Kampmeier was presented with a plaque for her service as Secretary/Treasurer to NCR-148 since 1985 [trivia: she is the only member to have attended every meeting of NCR-148]

Home Page. Our homepage has been accessed over 2500 times over the last 3 years. Several questions from the public have been fielded to specialists within the group.

Tours. Wednesday morning 3 November was reserved for tours of the new State Climate Center on the Centennial Campus of North Carolina State University. The Center is modelled on the Oklahoma Mesonet. The group also toured the North American Plant Disease Forecasting Center and the National Weather Service Forecast Office.

A seafood dinner at the historic 42nd Street Oyster Bar topped off Tuesday evening.

MAD. The working group on Movement and Dispersal (part of ESCOP's Pest Management Strategies Subcommittee) has been dissolved in the reorganization of ESCOP.

State Reports.

Arizona researchers are evaluating the dispersal patterns of the whitefly parasitoid, Eretmocerus with an eye to successfully deploying these biological control agents in an effective manner for growers as more are looking towards organic farming and even traditional farmers are losing their chemical arsenal to resistance. There have been problems with recommendations for inundative releases because it is still unknown how far the females fly-they have a greater flight propensity (spend more time flying) than do the males. Experiments show that unmated females fly significantly longer than mated females, and both fly significantly longer than males whether mated (least likely to fly) or not.

Illinois scientists are documenting the spread of western corn rootworm (WCR) into soybean fields and to quantify relationships among crop development, WCR population growth, weather, and beetle movement. Results are presented on the Rotation-Resistant WCR homepage [archived]

In other efforts, a multidisciplinary and multi-institutional grant proposal has been submitted to the National Science Foundation for funding on "Arthropod transport and dispersal by atmospheric circulation study" using stable flies as a model. The three-year nearly $1.25 M dollar project would involve principle investigators from the University of Illinois' Departments of Veterinary Pathobiology and Geography, the Illinois State Water Survey, and cooperators from USDA-ARS in Florida, and Michigan State's Dept. of Entomology.

Iowa scientists, with reports in the news about the potential for Bt corn pollen to adversely affect the migrating monarch populations, are determining how much Bt pollen deposition is likely in nature on milkweed leaves (favored food of monarch larvae) and have conducted laboratory tests to determine whether monarch butterfly larvae prefer or avoid milkweed leaves with Bt pollen, and to determine whether Bt pollen influences larval weight and survival. While larvae tended to avoid pollen laden leaves, those ingesting leaves with pollen suffered effects that were dependent in severity to dosage and upon the cultivar from which the pollen came.

Michigan researchers are determining the importance of biotic interchange between wild and cultivated habitats for the grape berry moth. Their work will have important implications to growers using conventional management, pheromone mating disruption, and on resistance management strategies. Future work is planned on the role of natural enemy dispersal between the habitats and the importance of wild grapes on the stability of biological control of this pest.

Other research in Michigan involves Illinois and Nebraska scientists in determining whether post-takeoff orientation of western corn rootworm beetles towards corn or soybean is an indication of its potential to oviposit within soybeans. Populations from all three states all oriented more towards corn, even though the variant that lays eggs in soybean exists in Illinois and now has spread to Michigan.

Missouri scientists are working on resistance management of BT resistance in the southwestern cornborer (SWCB) and looking at the factors limiting SWCB dispersal. The black cutworm work of Armon Keaster (emeritus) is on hold until his position is filled.

Nebraska researchers are examining the ecological factors of wheat curl mite (WCM) movement from corn stubble to winter wheat. These tiny (150-200 microns) arthropods transmit wheat streak mosaic and high plains viruses and can build up to incredibly high numbers of as many as 5,000 mites per wheat head. Irrigated corn supports a large buildup of WCM, although seedling corn is not a good host. The biggest boost to mite populations is hail prior to harvest, which stimulates the growth of volunteer wheat, which provides a refuge for the mites Scientists are trying to develop risk assessments of fields. A longer range movement than from field to field is suspected.

New York scientists are continuing to develop and refine techniques for using remotely piloted airplanes (RPV) to sample both insects and plant pathogens during all hours and in the face of weather fronts that may be influencing the travel of their targeted organisms. Because the maximum sampling capacity of the current sampling platform is too small, a larger RPV with a greater payload is being designed for the year 2000. In 1999, Don Aylor (CT) came to Cornell to help calibrate the spore sampling traps in a wind tunnel, finding that smaller petri dishes were 40% more efficient than larger ones. The RPVs also went on the road to visit Charlie Main in North Carolina. Shields will help train others to learn how to use this kind of aerial sampler, stating that a good hobby pilot that is teachable can learn in 2-3 hours, the trick is in the take-offs and landings.

North Carolina researchers Charlie Main (plant pathologist) and Jerry Davis (agricultural meteorologist) have been collaborating since 1979 and the result is the North American Plant Disease Forecast Center at NCSU. Meteorologically based on the Oklahoma Mesonet concept, the team tracks plant pathogens out of as far south as Mexico all the way to Canada. Their impact began with tracking blue mold of tobacco and has spread to cucurbit downy mildew and a return to Oklahoma with the allergenic pollen forecasting of mountain cedar with Estelle Levetin at the University of Tulsa. Other NCR-148-related collaborations over the last year have included David Byrne's (AZ) use of fluorescent particles to simulate the action of plant pathogens in the atmosphere for testing sampling systems, and Elson Shields' (NY) airplane sampler to work on validation of models.

Main has been invited to speak at more than a half dozen international conferences over the last 2 years, and has been involved in developing distance learning and web tutorials (in English and some in Spanish). Their new distance learning tutorials for high school, graduate school, professionals, farmers, and industry targets audiences in plant disease epidemiology, aerobiology and biometeorology, and allergy and health.

Ohio scientists are trying to develop a sustainable strategy that will allow for Colorado potato beetle (CPB) suppression in fields where transgenic (Bt endotoxin) potatoes are planted without development of resistance to Bt in CPB. What percentage of a landscape should be refuge? what percentage transgenic? at what scale should they be intermixed? Knowledge of movement is key in the development of a refuge strategy because it relies on resistant beetles mating with susceptible beetles, and one of them must move between transgenic and standard potatoes for this to happen. Low doses of the endotoxin increase walking of CPBs, but even very low concentrations of Bt decreased their flight potential, which would keep the beetles in the field. These differential effects in the leg and flight muscles suggest that a range of Bt doses may be able to be identified to manipulate CPB movement for a sustainable use of Bt endotoxin to control these pests.

Present at the meeting

O. W. Barnett, North Carolina State University, Head, Dept. Plant Pathology
David Byrne, University of Arizona (AZ)
Mike Chippendale, University of Missouri-Columbia, Administrative Advisor to NCR-148
Jerry Davis, North Carolina State University, Agricultural Meteorologist
Jim Harper, North Carolina State University, Head, Dept. of Entomology
Gary Hein, University of Nebraska, (NE)
Casey Hoy, Ohio State University (OH) (1998 chair)
Mike Irwin, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, (co-IL)
Rufus Isaacs, Michigan State University (co-MI)
Scott Isard, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, (co-IL)
Gail Kampmeier, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Sec'y/Treas.
Tom Keever, North Carolina State University, graduate student
Ken Lakin, USDA/APHIS-PPQ, Center for Plant Health Science, Raleigh
Charlie Main, North Carolina State University
Rick Meyer, CSREES representative
V. R. Rao, North Carolina State University (visiting from Hyderabad, India
Elson Shields, Cornell University, (NY)
James Thurman, North Carolina State University, grad student

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)
Ken Ostlie (co-MN)
Jim Venette (ND)