Quantitative analysis of diet structure by real-time PCR, reveals different feeding patterns by two dominant grasshopper species

This study was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China, 31471823, the Earmarked Fund for China Agriculture Research System, CARS-35-07, and the Innovation Project of Chinese Academy of Agricultural Science.Studies on grasshopper diets have historically employed a range of methodologies, each with certain advantages and disadvantages. For example, some methodologies are qualitative instead of quantitative. Others require long experimental periods or examine population-level effects, only. In this study, we used real-time PCR to examine diets of individual grasshoppers. The method has the advantage of being both fast and quantitative. Using two grasshopper species, Oedaleus asiaticus and Dasyhippus barbipes, we designed ITS primer sequences for their three main host plants, Stipa krylovii, Leymus chinensis and Cleistogenes squarrosa and used real-time PCR method to test diet structure both qualitatively and quantitatively. The lowest detection efficiency of the three grass species was ~80% with a strong correlation between actual and PCR-measured food intake. We found that Oedaleus asiaticus maintained an unchanged diet structure across grasslands with different grass communities. By comparison, Dasyhippus barbipes changed its diet structure. These results revealed why O. asiaticus distribution is mainly confined to Stipa-dominated grassland, and D. barbipes is more widely distributed across Inner Mongolia. Overall, real-time PCR was shown to be a useful tool for investigating grasshopper diets, which in turn offers some insight into grasshopper distributions and improved pest management.Publisher PDFPeer reviewe

Trichogramma chilonis, an effective egg parasitoid for control of white stem borer Scirpophaga innotata (Walker), (Lepidoptera: Pyralidae) in rice

Rice an important staple food crop of the world, which is attacked by the various insect pests, among them the stem borers are the most destructive pests, distributed in all rice growing areas of the world and cause the severe losses. This research investigated the efficacy of the parasitoid Trichogramma chilonis (Ishii) to control the white stem borer (Scirpophaga innotata) in rice. In this respect the field studies were conducted in lower Sindh, Pakistan for the year, Kharif - 2017 and 2018. Trichogramma egg parasitoid over 230 species are reported to have been remained in biological control of insect pests of over 200 insect species belonging to 70 different families, mainly the order Lepidoptera, Hemiptera, Orthroptera and Thysnoptera, in order to manage the white stem borer of rice the Trichogramma chilonis (Ishii) was used as a bio-control agent. The Studies revealed that T. chilonis proved an effective biocontrol strategy against white stem borer of rice. The result of this study could be useful in an integrated pest management program for the management of white stem borer of rice the Trichogramma chilonis.            

Surveillance indicators for potential reduced exposure products (PREPs): developing survey items to measure awareness

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Over the past decade, tobacco companies have introduced cigarettes and smokeless tobacco products (known as Potential Reduced Exposure Products, PREPs) with purportedly lower levels of some toxins than conventional cigarettes and smokeless products. It is essential that public health agencies monitor awareness, interest, use, and perceptions of these products so that their impact on population health can be detected at the earliest stages.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>This paper reviews and critiques existing strategies for measuring <it>awareness </it>of PREPs from 16 published and unpublished studies. From these measures, we developed new surveillance items and subjected them to two rounds of cognitive testing, a common and accepted method for evaluating questionnaire wording.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Our review suggests that high levels of awareness of PREPs reported in some studies are likely to be inaccurate. Two likely sources of inaccuracy in awareness measures were identified: 1) the tendency of respondents to misclassify "no additive" and "natural" cigarettes as PREPs and 2) the tendency of respondents to mistakenly report awareness as a result of confusion between PREPs brands and similarly named familiar products, for example, Eclipse chewing gum and Accord automobiles.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>After evaluating new measures with cognitive interviews, we conclude that as of winter 2006, awareness of reduced exposure products among U.S. smokers was likely to be between 1% and 8%, with the higher estimates for some products occurring in test markets. Recommended measurement strategies for future surveys are presented.</p

What happened to smokers' beliefs about light cigarettes when "light/mild" brand descriptors were banned in the UK? Findings from the International Tobacco Control (ITC) Four Country Survey

Aim: This paper reports findings of an evaluation that examined how beliefs of smokers in the United Kingdom (UK) were affected by the removal of light and mild brand descriptors which came into effect on September 30, 2003 for Member States of the European Union (EU). Participants: The data come from the first 4 waves (2002-2005) of the International Tobacco Control Policy Evaluation (ITC) 4 Country Survey, an annual cohort telephone survey of adult smokers in Canada, United States, United Kingdom, and Australia (15450 individual cases). Design: The UK ban on misleading descriptors occurred around the 2nd wave of data collection in the ITC survey, permitting us to compare beliefs about light cigarettes among adult smokers in the UK both before and after the ban, with beliefs in three other countries unaffected by the ban. Results: The findings reveal that high levels of misperceptions about light cigarettes existed among smokers in all four countries before and after the EU ban took effect. There was a substantial decline in reported beliefs about the benefits of Lights in the UK following the policy change and an associated public information campaign, but by 2006 (i.e., Wave 4), these beliefs rebounded slightly and the change in beliefs was no greater than in the United States, where there was no policy change. Conclusion: We cannot conclude that the policy which required removal of the misleading labels has been effective in changing beliefs about light cigarettes. What seems apparent is that efforts to correct decades of consumer misperceptions about light cigarettes will require more than simply removing brand descriptors

Dietary Stress From Plant Secondary Metabolites Contributes to Grasshopper (Oedaleus asiaticus) Migration or Plague by Regulating Insect Insulin-Like Signaling Pathway

Diets essentially affect the ecological distribution of insects, and may contribute to or even accelerate pest plague outbreaks. The grasshopper, Oedaleus asiaticus B-Bienko (OA), is a persistent pest occurring in northern Asian grasslands. Migration and plague of this grasshopper is tightly related to two specific food plants, Stipa krylovii Roshev and Leymus chinensis (Trin.) Tzvel. However, how these diets regulate and contribute to plague is not clearly understood. Ecological studies have shown that L. chinensis is detrimental to OA growth due to the presence of high secondary metabolites, and that S. krylovii is beneficial because of the low levels of secondary metabolites. Moreover, in field habitats consisting mainly of these two grasses, OA density has negative correlation to high secondary metabolites and a positive correlation to nutrition content for high energy demand. These two grasses act as a ‘push-pull,’ thus enabling the grasshopper plague. Molecular analysis showed that gene expression and protein phosphorylation level of the IGF → FOXO cascade in the insulin-like signaling pathway (ILP) of OA negatively correlated to dietary secondary metabolites. High secondary metabolites in L. chinensis down-regulates the ILP pathway that generally is detrimental to insect survival and growth, and benefits insect detoxification with high energy cost. The changed ILP could explain the poor growth of grasshoppers and fewer distributions in the presence of L. chinensis. Plants can substantially affect grasshopper gene expression, protein function, growth, and ecological distribution. Down-regulation of grasshopper ILP due to diet stress caused by high secondary metabolites containing plants, such as L. chinensis, results in poor grasshopper growth and consequently drives grasshopper migration to preferable diet, such as S. krylovii, thus contributing to grasshopper plague outbreaks

Different paths to the modern state in Europe: the interaction between domestic political economy and interstate competition

Theoretical work on state formation and capacity has focused mostly on early modern Europe and on the experience of western European states during this period. While a number of European states monopolized domestic tax collection and achieved gains in state capacity during the early modern era, for others revenues stagnated or even declined, and these variations motivated alternative hypotheses for determinants of fiscal and state capacity. In this study we test the basic hypotheses in the existing literature making use of the large date set we have compiled for all of the leading states across the continent. We find strong empirical support for two prevailing threads in the literature, arguing respectively that interstate wars and changes in economic structure towards an urbanized economy had positive fiscal impact. Regarding the main point of contention in the theoretical literature, whether it was representative or authoritarian political regimes that facilitated the gains in fiscal capacity, we do not find conclusive evidence that one performed better than the other. Instead, the empirical evidence we have gathered lends supports to the hypothesis that when under pressure of war, the fiscal performance of representative regimes was better in the more urbanized-commercial economies and the fiscal performance of authoritarian regimes was better in rural-agrarian economie

Reconstructing Asian faunal introductions to eastern Africa from multi-proxy biomolecular and archaeological datasets

Human-mediated biological exchange has had global social and ecological impacts. In subS-aharan Africa, several domestic and commensal animals were introduced from Asia in the pre-modern period; however, the timing and nature of these introductions remain contentious. One model supports introduction to the eastern African coast after the mid-first millennium CE, while another posits introduction dating back to 3000 BCE. These distinct scenarios have implications for understanding the emergence of long-distance maritime connectivity, and the ecological and economic impacts of introduced species. Resolution of this longstanding debate requires new efforts, given the lack of well-dated fauna from high-precision excavations, and ambiguous osteomorphological identifications. We analysed faunal remains from 22 eastern African sites spanning a wide geographic and chronological range, and applied biomolecular techniques to confirm identifications of two Asian taxa: domestic chicken (Gallus gallus) and black rat (Rattus rattus). Our approach included ancient DNA (aDNA) analysis aided by BLAST-based bioinformatics, Zooarchaeology by Mass Spectrometry (ZooMS) collagen fingerprinting, and direct AMS (accelerator mass spectrometry) radiocarbon dating. Our results support a late, mid-first millennium CE introduction of these species. We discuss the implications of our findings for models of biological exchange, and emphasize the applicability of our approach to tropical areas with poor bone preservation

Multiple novel prostate cancer susceptibility signals identified by fine-mapping of known risk loci among Europeans

Genome-wide association studies (GWAS) have identified numerous common prostate cancer (PrCa) susceptibility loci. We have fine-mapped 64 GWAS regions known at the conclusion of the iCOGS study using large-scale genotyping and imputation in 25 723 PrCa cases and 26 274 controls of European ancestry. We detected evidence for multiple independent signals at 16 regions, 12 of which contained additional newly identified significant associations. A single signal comprising a spectrum of correlated variation was observed at 39 regions; 35 of which are now described by a novel more significantly associated lead SNP, while the originally reported variant remained as the lead SNP only in 4 regions. We also confirmed two association signals in Europeans that had been previously reported only in East-Asian GWAS. Based on statistical evidence and linkage disequilibrium (LD) structure, we have curated and narrowed down the list of the most likely candidate causal variants for each region. Functional annotation using data from ENCODE filtered for PrCa cell lines and eQTL analysis demonstrated significant enrichment for overlap with bio-features within this set. By incorporating the novel risk variants identified here alongside the refined data for existing association signals, we estimate that these loci now explain ∼38.9% of the familial relative risk of PrCa, an 8.9% improvement over the previously reported GWAS tag SNPs. This suggests that a significant fraction of the heritability of PrCa may have been hidden during the discovery phase of GWAS, in particular due to the presence of multiple independent signals within the same regio

Ten-year mortality, disease progression, and treatment-related side effects in men with localised prostate cancer from the ProtecT randomised controlled trial according to treatment received

Background The ProtecT trial reported intention-to-treat analysis of men with localised prostate cancer randomly allocated to active monitoring (AM), radical prostatectomy, and external beam radiotherapy. Objective To report outcomes according to treatment received in men in randomised and treatment choice cohorts. Design, setting, and participants This study focuses on secondary care. Men with clinically localised prostate cancer at one of nine UK centres were invited to participate in the treatment trial comparing AM, radical prostatectomy, and radiotherapy. Intervention Two cohorts included 1643 men who agreed to be randomised and 997 who declined randomisation and chose treatment. Outcome measurements and statistical analysis Analysis was carried out to assess mortality, metastasis and progression and health-related quality of life impacts on urinary, bowel, and sexual function using patient-reported outcome measures. Analysis was based on comparisons between groups defined by treatment received for both randomised and treatment choice cohorts in turn, with pooled estimates of intervention effect obtained using meta-analysis. Differences were estimated with adjustment for known prognostic factors using propensity scores. Results and limitations According to treatment received, more men receiving AM died of PCa (AM 1.85%, surgery 0.67%, radiotherapy 0.73%), whilst this difference remained consistent with chance in the randomised cohort (p = 0.08); stronger evidence was found in the exploratory analyses (randomised plus choice cohort) when AM was compared with the combined radical treatment group (p = 0.003). There was also strong evidence that metastasis (AM 5.6%, surgery 2.4%, radiotherapy 2.7%) and disease progression (AM 20.35%, surgery 5.87%, radiotherapy 6.62%) were more common in the AM group. Compared with AM, there were higher risks of sexual dysfunction (95% at 6 mo) and urinary incontinence (55% at 6 mo) after surgery, and of sexual dysfunction (88% at 6 mo) and bowel dysfunction (5% at 6 mo) after radiotherapy. The key limitations are the potential for bias when comparing groups defined by treatment received and changes in the protocol for AM during the lengthy follow-up required in trials of screen-detected PCa. Conclusions Analyses according to treatment received showed increased rates of disease-related events and lower rates of patient-reported harms in men managed by AM compared with men managed by radical treatment, and stronger evidence of greater PCa mortality in the AM group. Patient summary More than 95 out of every 100 men with low or intermediate risk localised prostate cancer do not die of prostate cancer within 10 yr, irrespective of whether treatment is by means of monitoring, surgery, or radiotherapy. Side effects on sexual and bladder function are better after active monitoring, but the risks of spreading of prostate cancer are more common