Progress 10/05/17 to 09/30/18
Outputs
Target Audience:Biological control scientists, paractioners, managers of invasive species, and clients benefiting from biological control Changes/Problems:
Nothing Reported
What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided?Seeds of science day May 23, 2016: Demonstrated the concept of olfactory communication in termites to 50 5th grade students during 5 mini workshops of 20 minutes. http://oregonstate.edu/dept/coarc/keywords/seeds-science, http://oregonprogress.oregonstate.edu/winter-2014/coarc/seeds-science Saturday Academy Midsummer Conference Workshop July 12, 2016: The Hidden World of Insects: https://issuu.com/saturdayacademy/docs/mscprogram2016trulyfinal. Taught a 90-minute workshop for 12 high school students in Saturday Academy Internship program on temperature tolerance and behavioral thermoregulation of insects. Apprenticeship in Science and Engineering for High School Students June 22 - August 31 2016: Eight-week apprenticeship with intensive mentoring on experimental design, data collection, data management, statistical analysis and scientific writing. Final presentation of high school student at ASE summer conference: "Adult oviposition choice of cinnabar moth larvae on target and non-target host plant". Independent research projects June - August 2016:? Opportunities for independent research projects for six OSU undergraduates and two volunteer researchers, providing intensive mentoring and learning experiences culminating in two presentations and four research papers. Citizen science project on iNaturalist:? We actively involved citizen scientists in our search for new insect and plant populations and maintained a project website on (https://www.inaturalist.org/projects/cinnabar-project). Madison G. Rodman and Peter B. McEvoy 2017. Non-target effects of biological control: Sensitivity and exposure of Senecio triangularis (Asteraceae) to timing and intensity of Tyria jacobaeae (Lepidoptera: Erebidae) herbivory. Annual Meeting of the Ecological Society of America. Portland, Oregon. August 6-11, 2017 Monte Mattsson, Linda P. Buergi and Peter B. McEvoy 2017. Growing faster when it's colder: Cinnabar moths invading subalpine areas rapidly evolve faster growth at extreme temperature. Annual Meeting of the Ecological Society of America. Portland, Oregon. August 6-11, 2017 "The Hidden World of Insects": Apprenticeships in Science and Engineering Saturday Academy Summer Workshop, 13 July 2017: We introduced 6 high school students to contemporary approaches to studying ecology and evolution in both laboratory and field settings. How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest?Publications: McEvoy, Peter B. 2018 Theoretical contributions to biological control success. BioControl: Accepted. Thesis: M. Rodman 2017. Ecological Risk of Tyria jacobaeae (Lepidoptera: Erebidae) to Senecio triangularis (Asteraceae) in Western Oregon. MS Thesis, Oregon State University. News releases: Radio interview: A very Hungry Caterpillar, a very Tenacious Scientist - Madison Rodman http://blogs.oregonstate.edu/inspiration/2017/02/03/hungry-caterpillar-tenacious-scientist/ Presentations:? Peter B. McEvoy, Linda Buergi, Monte Mattsson 'Changes in the timing of life cycle events along a climatic gradient: causes, mechanisms, and implications for biological control'. Symposium on insect-plant interactions in a changing climate: effects on population dynamics and biological control. Entomological Society of America, Entomology 2016 and the XXV International Congress of Entomology, September 25-30, 2016, Orlando, Florida. Linda Buergi, Monte Mattsson, Peter B. McEvoy. "Accounting for rapid-evolution in weed biocontrol: a step towards increasing predictability." Symposium on the Status and Prospects for Biological Control in the 21st Century (IOBC). Entomological Society of America, Entomology 2016 and the XXV International Congress of Entomology, September 25- 30, 2016, Orlando, Florida. Technical Committee (Chaired by Dan Bean), CSRS Regional Project W 3-185 "Biological Control in Pest Management Systems of Plants," Glenwood Springs, CO, October 5-6, 2016. Presented two invited talks: Fritzi Grevstad, Peter McEvoy, Eric Coombs, and Linda Buergi. "A risk index to predict non-target host use in biocontrol" and Peter B. McEvoy, Linda Buergi, Monte Mattsson "Response of biological control insects to novel climates". What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals? Estimate thermal reaction norms for phenotypic traits (rates of growth, development, survival, reproduction; body size) of mountain and valley genotypes reared across a wide range in temperature (4°, 7°, 12°, 18°, 25°, 30°, 36°, and 40°C). Model fluctuating selection by 'back-casting' over prior decades, from the present back to 1985 (when anthropogenic redistribution of the moth to mountain habitats was discontinued),to annually estimate the strength and direction of selection (imposed by annual variation in the timing of arrival of winter) acting on the speed of phenological development. Speed of phenological development is being modeled as a complex function of (1) available heat, (2) host plant, (3) disease, (4) environmentally-cued (winter chilling) phenotypic plasticity, (5) genotype, and (6) stochastic variation in the individual environment. Measuring and Modeling Metabolic Rate as phenotypic trait. Metabolism describes how the insect body transforms energy to be able to run all the functions of life including growth, development, survival, and reproduction. We believe Metabolic Rate will serve as a sensitive measure of the pace of life in our study insects, an intermediary measure between genes and phenotypes, and an additional phenotypic trait likely to differ among our genotypes. We have obtained respirometry equipment for this purpose via supplemental funding from Research Equipment Reserve Fund (RERF), Oregon State University. Convene panels of experts at scientific symposia to be held in conjunction with the International Symposium Biological Control of Weeds ISBCW, August 27 - 31, 2018, Engelberg, Switzerland and the tri-society meeting of the Entomological Society of America,Entomological Society of Canada, and Entomological Society of British Columbia, November 11-14, 2018, Vancouver, BC Canada. The aim is to capture biological control scientists targeting both weeds and arthropods.
Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals?
Under goal 3, we are evaluating the implications of rapid evolution in a biological control organism (the cinnabar moth) for safety and effectiveness of biological control. We screened for differences in relevant phenotypic traits (rates of growth, development, survival, reproduction, and projected rates of population growth and range expansion; plus consumer oviposition preference, food consumption, and conversion of ingested food to growth) within and between geographic populations of the cinnabar moth, a biological control agent of tansy ragwort, (2) identified the genetic architecture of ecologically relevant traits, and the causal links between variation in traits, performance and reproductive success, (3) scaned the genome to identify specific candidate genes associated with climate and host plant adaptation, (4) arranged for regional (North America) and international surveys (plus New Zealand and Europe) spanning latitudinal and altitudinal gradients to compare patterns of genome variation with our local findings
Publications
- Type:
Journal Articles
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2017
Citation:
McEvoy PB (2017) Theoretical contributions to biological control success. BioControl First Online: 16 November 2017
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