Earwigs: No Big Deal

NYS IPM Type: Community IPM Fact SheetVirtually harmless to humans, earwigs do not spread diseases and their mouths are too small to bite. Some species will use their rear pincher-like appendages to protect themselves, giving them a fierce reputation exaggerated beyond their actual threat. Most earwig species live in moist areas outdoors where they feed on decaying vegetation and other arthropods. These common insects are found worldwide, with the greatest diversity located in the tropics

Sociogenomics of maternal care and parent-offspring coadaptation in the European earwigs (Forficula auricularia)

Conflict and cooperation are ubiquitous in nature and in animal families where parents and offspring reciprocally influence each other's behavior and fitness. Evolutionary models predict selection for parent-offspring coadaptation that strike balance between parents pursuing self-fitness versus offspring demanding parental investment. Ultimately, it facilitates well-coordinated parenting and optimized cooperation with their offspring in the face of sexual reproduction and genetic recombination which cause genetic conflict. However, the genomic basis of parent-offspring coadaptation is poorly understood. My dissertation focused on the sociogenomics of materanl care and parent-offspring coadaptation in the European earwig (Forficula auricularia), a facultative uni-parental female care insect. In the first chapter, we sequenced the transcriptome of the European earwig from various tissues and developmental stages of female and male applying Roche 454 pyrosequencing and Illumina HiSeq. The reads were de novo assembled independently and screened for possible microbial contamination and repeated elements. Hybrid assembly of these data yield comprehensive transcriptome with a low level of fragmentation comparing to the eukaryotic core gene dataset. More than 8,800 contigs of the hybrid assembly show significant similarity to insect-specific proteins and those were assigned for Gene Ontology terms. Finally, I validated the transcriptome and established a quantitative PCR method and applied it to homologs of five known sex-biased genes of the honeybee. The qPCR pilot study confirmed sex specific expression and also revealed significant expression differences between the brain and antenna tissue samples. The transcriptome presented here offers new opportunities to study the molecular bases and evolution of parental care and sociality in arthropods. In the second chapter, I identified two parent-offspring coadapted genes, PebIII and Th, in the European earwig, based on comparative transcriptomics from experimentally manipulated mother-offspring interactions. Functional study applying RNAi revealed that PebIII in offspring enhances survival, in mothers enhances their relative investment in future reproduction and indirectly delayed offspring development; Th in mothers enhanced food provisioning, in offspring indirectly enhanced the likelihood of maternal future reproduction. These results suggested PebIII being reciprocally selfish while Th being reciprocally altruistic in both mothers and offspring. Metabolic pathway analyses further indicated the role of Th-restricted dopaminergic reward, PebIII mediated chemical perception and regulations between insulin signaling, juvenile hormone and vitellogenin in parent-offspring coadaptation and social evolution. In the third chapter, I manipulated the interaction between earwig mothers and offspring over two generation and investigated transgenerational effects of maternal care on the expression of the two parent-offspring coadapted genes found in chapter2 and the fitness consequences in mothers and offspring. Significant transgenerational effects were found for the expression of PebIII and Th in the head of mothers. The expression of PebIII in the whole body of offspring showed significant effects of transgeneration treatment, current generation treatment and current generation by transgeneration treatments interaction. Significant transgenerational effect was found for relative maternal investment in future reproduction and offspring growth rate. Maternal future reproduction and latency for maternal future reproduction showed significant effects of current generation parental care treatment. Our results indicates an epigenetic regulation of gene expressions underlying parent-offspring coadaptation. In the last chapter, the expressions of parent-offspring coadapted genes were validated using Fluidigm gene expression dynamic array. An additional treatment was included to control for time effect. We found the regulation of Th and PebIII were not influenced by the interaction between parent and offpsirng per se, but rather controlled by the reproductive stage of mothers suggesting preprogrammed expression in earwig. Such regulation of parenting genes in the sub-social species might be ancestral to the age-dependent division of labor in eusocial system. These four chapters of my thesis were a series of continuous work and provided significant insights into the genomic basis of parent-offspring coadaptation. I established qPCR method to validate the de novo hybrid assembled transcriptome of the European earwig. I identified candidate parent-offspring coadapted genes using comparative trascriptomics. I established the method of Fluidigm gene expression dynamic array for earwigs to validate the RNA-Seq results. I established the RNAi techonology for earwigs to manipulate gene expressions and to study the social function of candidate genes. I demonstrated that PebIII and Th are two parent-offspring coadapted genes, which are co-regulated in mothers and offspring during active post-hatching parental care. Their expression were preprogrammed in mothers, reflecting the reproductive stage of females. Both genes showed causal effects on the behavior and fitness of earwig mothers and nymphs, coordinating the selfishness and altruism in family life. I showed transgenerational effects of maternal care on the expression of PebIII and Th, and opened the door for future studies of the epigenetic mechanisms regulating gene expression over generations and maintaining parent-offspring coadaptation in earwigs

NEBLINE, August 2016

CONTENTS Feature: 4-H Clover College 20th Anniversary — Grows From 8 to 58 Workshops Food & Health Farm & Acreage Pests & Wildlife Horticulture Early Childhood 4-H & Youth Extension Calendar and other extension news and events Special pullout section: Lancaster County Super Fair 2016 Schedule & Ma

Death Scene Insect Succession in Nebraska: A Guidebook

Insect behavior can be helpful to law enforcement in determining time of death, manner of death, location, and environment related to human or other animal victims found at a death scene. They may also provide clues about other aspects associated with an investigation (i.e., fly specks, suspect DNA). The study of how insects and related arthropods can aid in legal investigations is known as forensic entomology. Although this includes both civil applications, such as urban (i.e., maggots in mortuaries or insect structural damage) or stored product (i.e., illness from food contamination) entomology, this manual focuses on criminal applications, such as how insect evidence can be used at death scene investigations. One of the most important uses of entomological evidence for crime scene cases is in estimating time since death, or postmortem interval (PMI). Another related term, which is sometimes used interchangeably with PMI, and in other cases is used separately, is “time since colonization.” This is the time at which insects first colonize a dead body. Because blow flies visit a body often within minutes of death, it is reasonable that this would coincide with PMI. However, it is important to note that due to other factors such as temperature, location, weather conditions, and other variables, insect activity can accelerate or slow down and thus influence PMI. PMI can even be set back if animal predators find a corpse and feed on the flesh, inadvertently eating or destroying any insect eggs that have been laid on it. In this case, the earliest eggs to hatch on a body may be the offspring of insects that arrived later in the decomposition process rather than from initial insect visitors. If the body appears damaged by predator activity, the possibility of early colonizer larvae having been destroyed should be taken into consideration when making PMI estimations. The life stages of insects found on a corpse can give clues about how long the person has been dead and help build a timeline of the crime. While this guidebook will not be detailing how to calculate PMI, references are included at the end that will provide this information for law enforcement who may be doing this work. Investigators may also wish to consult a forensic entomologist specializing in this area for assistance. This guidebook discusses the general succession of forensically important insects expected to populate a decomposing body found in an outdoor environment during the summer months in Lincoln, Nebraska. There are limitations to generalizing this location with other locations. However, we are of the opinion that the information is useful for a general protocol for decomposition scenes be they murder, suicide, accidental, undetermined, natural, human, or non-human. This guide emphasizes what entomological evidence to look for at a death investigation, how to properly document evidence with photographs/temperature and humidity loggers/field notes, how to collect and preserve insect specimens, how to do preliminary analysis of insects and remains, how to decide whether to solicit an expert, and how to submit insect evidence for analysis. The more information and data that is available, the better it will be for an accurate and useful report. After a brief discussion about the history of forensic entomology, this manual is divided into several sections. The first section will examine the stages of decomposition and the types of insects that visit a corpse during these different decomposition stages. The second will provide detailed descriptions of some of the most common forensically important insect orders. The third section presents two field exercises as case studies illustrating the process of decomposition and insect behavior. The final section will examine the step by step process for collecting and preserving insects at a crime scene and the type of information that insect evidence can tell investigators. A references/resources list is available, as well as practice exercises to test your knowledge

Artificial Light Increases Local Predator Abundance, Predation Rates, and Herbivory.

Human activity is rapidly increasing the radiance and geographic extent of artificial light at night (ALAN) leading to alterations in the development, behavior, and physiological state of many organisms. A limited number of community-scale studies investigating the effects of ALAN have allowed for spatial aggregation through positive phototaxis, the commonly observed phenomenon of arthropod movement toward light. We performed an open field study (without restricted arthropod access) to determine the effects of ALAN on local arthropod community composition, plant traits, and local herbivory and predation rates. We found strong positive phototaxis in 10 orders of arthropods, with increased (159% higher) overall arthropod abundance under ALAN compared to unlit controls. The arthropod community under ALAN was more diverse and contained a higher proportion of predaceous arthropods (15% vs 8%). Predation of immobilized flies occurred 3.6 times faster under ALAN; this effect was not observed during the day. Contrary to expectations, we also observed a 6% increase in herbivory under ALAN. Our results highlight the importance of open experimental field studies in determining community-level effects of ALAN

Can the g Factor Play a Role in Artificial General Intelligence Research?

In recent years, a trend in AI research has started to pursue human-level, general artificial intelli-gence (AGI). Although the AGI framework is characterised by different viewpoints on what intelligence is and how to implement it in artificial systems, it conceptualises intelligence as flexible, general-purposed, and capable of self-adapting to different contexts and tasks. Two important ques-tions remain open: a) should AGI projects simu-late the biological, neural, and cognitive mecha-nisms realising the human intelligent behaviour? and b) what is the relationship, if any, between the concept of general intelligence adopted by AGI and that adopted by psychometricians, i.e., the g factor? In this paper, we address these ques-tions and invite researchers in AI to open a dis-cussion on the theoretical conceptions and practi-cal purposes of the AGI approach

Making and Managing Wild Bee Hotels

Bee hotels (also called bee boxes and bee blocks ) are popular additions to Utah backyards and commercial agriculture alike, adding nesting habitat to aid local pollination efforts and address native pollinator declines. This fact sheet provides information about the construction, placement, and maintenance of bee hotels. It also addresses monitoring of bee enemies

Texas Guide for Controlling Household Insects.

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