The role of chemical cues in the host finding behaviour of Trissolcus basalis from a Conservation Biological Control perspective

In assessing successful biological control programs by parasitoids, the knowledge of important traits, such as the host finding capability, i.e. the ability to find host and food resources, play the key role. Moreover, parasitoids in their natural environment parasitoids deal with a variable mixtures of natural cues. Some chemical cues are used by the wasps to locate their hosts, some ones drive wasps to feeding resources. The parasitoid response to these cues can fluctuate according to biotic factors and abiotic condition. This dissertation focus in details on the role of two important tools, such as selective flowering plants as food resources to add within a crop area and the traces left behind by the hosts while moving on the plant used by parasitoids to locate their host. These tools are important in order to increase the natural enemy effectiveness and thus develop successful programmes of Conservation Biological Control

Egg parasitoid exploitation of plant volatiles induced by single or concurrent attack of a zoophytophagous predator and an invasive phytophagous pest

Zoophytophagous insect predators can induce physiological responses in plants by activating defence signalling pathways, but whether plants can respond to facultative phytophagy by recruiting natural enemies remains to be investigated. In Y-tube olfactometer bioassays, using a system including a Vicia faba plant, the zoophytophagous predator Podisus maculiventris and the egg parasitoid Telenomus podisi, we first demonstrated that T. podisi females are attracted by broad bean plants damaged by feeding activity of P. maculiventris and on which host egg masses had been laid, while they are not attracted by undamaged plants or plants damaged by feeding activity alone. In a second experiment, we evaluated the impact of the invasive phytophagous pest Halyomorpha halys on this plant volatile-mediated tritrophic communication. Results showed that the invasive herbivorous adults do not induce plants to recruit the native egg parasitoid, but they can disrupt the local infochemical network. In fact, T. podisi females are not attracted by volatiles emitted by plants damaged by H. halys feeding alone or combined with oviposition activity, nor are they attracted by plants concurrently infested by P. maculiventris and H. halys, indicating the specificity in the parasitoid response and the ability of the invasive herbivore in interrupting the semiochemical communication between plants and native egg parasitoids. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first study showing that zoophytophagous predator attacks induce indirect plant defences similarly to those defence strategies adopted by plants as a consequence of single or concurrent infestations of herbivorous insects

A comparative assessment of two different debris flow propagation approaches – blind simulations on a real debris flow event

Abstract. A detailed comparison between the performances of two different approaches to debris flow modelling was carried out. In particular, the results of a mono-phase Bingham model (FLO-2D) and that of a two-phase model (TRENT-2D) obtained from a blind test were compared. As a benchmark test the catastrophic event of 1 October 2009 which struck Sicily causing several fatalities and damage was chosen. The predicted temporal evolution of several parameters of the debris flow (such as flow depth and propagation velocity) was analysed in order to investigate the advantages and disadvantages of the two models in reproducing the global dynamics of the event. An analysis between the models' results with survey data have been carried out, not only for the determination of statistical indicators of prediction accuracy, but also for the application of the Receiver Operator Characteristic (ROC) approach. Provided that the proper rheological parameters and boundary conditions are assigned, both models seem capable of reproducing the inundation areas in a reasonably accurate way. However, the main differences in the application rely on the choice of such rheological parameters. Indeed, within the more user-friendly FLO-2D model the tuning of the parameters must be done empirically, with no evidence of the physics of the phenomena. On the other hand, for the TRENT-2D the parameters are physically based and can be estimated from the properties of the solid material, thus reproducing more reliable results. A second important difference between the two models is that in the first method the debris flow is treated as a homogeneous flow, in which the total mass is kept constant from its initiation in the upper part of the basin to the deposition in a debris fan. In contrast, the second approach is suited to reproduce the erosion and deposition processes and the displaced mass can be directly related to the rainfall event. Application of both models in a highly urbanized area reveals the limitation of numerical simulation which is inadequate in describing some disturbances of the flows that occurred during the alluvial event (e.g. the cars, the volume of debris within buildings etc.) which have a crucial influence on the evaluation of the maximum and final flow depths

A Monte Carlo multimodal inversion of surface waves

The analysis of surface wave propagation is often used to estimate the S-wave velocity profile at a site. In this paper, we propose a stochastic approach for the inversion of surface waves, which allows apparent dispersion curves to be inverted. The inversion method is based on the integrated use of two-misfit functions. A misfit function based on the determinant of the Haskell–Thomson matrix and a classical Euclidean distance between the dispersion curves. The former allows all the modes of the dispersion curve to be taken into account with a very limited computational cost because it avoids the explicit calculation of the dispersion curve for each tentative model. It is used in a Monte Carlo inversion with a large population of profiles. In a subsequent step, the selection of representative models is obtained by applying a Fisher test based on the Euclidean distance between the experimental and the synthetic dispersion curves to the best models of the Monte Carlo inversion. This procedure allows the set of the selected models to be identified on the basis of the data quality. It also mitigates the influence of local minima that can affect the Monte Carlo results. The effectiveness of the procedure is shown for synthetic and real experimental data sets, where the advantages of the two-stage procedure are highlighted. In particular, the determinant misfit allows the computation of large populations in stochastic algorithms with a limited computational cost

Laser pulse annealing of ion-implanted GaAs

GaAs single-crystals wafers are implanted at room temperature with 400-keV Te + ions to a dose of 1×10^15 cm^–2 to form an amorphous surface layer. The recrystallization of this layer is investigated by backscattering spectrometry and transmission electron microscopy after transient annealing by Q-switched ruby laser irradiation. An energy density threshold of about 1.0 J/cm^2 exists above which the layer regrows epitaxially. Below the threshold the layer is polycrystalline; the grain size increases as the energy density approaches threshold. The results are analogous to those reported for the elemental semiconductors, Si and Ge. The threshold value observed is in good agreement with that predicted by the simple model successfully applied previously to Si and Ge

Microscopic cluster model for the description of (18O,16O) two-neutron transfer reactions

Excitation energy spectra and absolute cross-section angular distributions were measured for the 13C(18O,16O)15C two-neutron transfer reaction at 84 MeV incident energy. Exact finite-range coupled reaction channel calculations are used to analyse the data considering both the direct two-neutron transfer and the two-step sequential mechanism. For the direct calculations, two approaches are discussed: The extreme cluster and the newly introduced microscopic cluster. The latter makes use of spectroscopic amplitudes in the centre-of-mass reference frame, derived from shell-model calculations. The results describe well the experimental cross sections

Microscopic cluster model for the description of new experimental results on the C 13 (O 18, O 16) C 15 two-neutron transfer at 84 MeV incident energy

The C13(O18,O16)C15 reaction is studied at 84 MeV incident energy. Excitation energy spectra and absolute cross-section angular distributions for the strongest transitions are measured with good energy and angular resolutions. Strong selectivity for two-neutron configurations in the states of the residual nucleus is found. The measured cross-section angular distributions are analyzed by exact finite-range coupled reaction channel calculations. The two-particle wave functions are extracted using the extreme cluster and the independent coordinate scheme with shell-model derived coupling strengths. A new approach also is introduced, the microscopic cluster, in which the spectroscopic amplitudes in the center-of-mass reference frame are derived from shell-model calculations using the Moshinsky transformation brackets. This new model is able to describe well the experimental cross section and to highlight cluster configurations in the involved wave functions