Molecular Identification of Synanthedonini Members (Lepidoptera: Sesiidae) Using Cytochrome Oxidase I

Many North American sesiid moths within Synanthodonini have been studied extensively because their feeding activity can cause detrimental economic and esthetic impacts to many commercially important ornamental and native plant species. Recent discoveries of nonnative clearwing moth pest introductions [e.g., Synanthedon myopaeformis (Borkh.)], reinforce the need for reliable and accurate molecular diagnostic tools that can be used by nontaxonomic experts, particularly when juvenile life stages are recovered from infested host-plant tissues. Cytochrome oxidase I (cox I) previously has been used to successfully identify species and resolve species complexes. In this study, the cox I phylogeny inferred from sequences generated from 21 species of sesiid moths classified within Synanthedonini confirms the close evolutionary relationship between sesiid species. As other authors have suggested in previous works, we observed that Synanthedon rileyana H. Edwards appears atypical for the genus, as it paired with Carmenta bassiformis (Walker) one node removed from, but not sister to, a large well-supported Synanthedon-rich clade. Sannina uroceriformis Walker and Podosesia MXöschler were observed nested deeply within the aforementioned well-supported clade (posterior probability [PP] of clade = 100) comprised of all Synanthedon species sampled, except S. rileyana. Placement of these two taxa conflicts with results from previous morphological studies. These placements were immune from repeated attempts to delete perceived nearby long branches within the data set. Despite these few conflicts and overall low statistical support for most interspecific and higher relationships, our data suggest that all species examined possess unique genetic signatures that lend themselves to accurate identification of all life history stages of these clearwing pests

Cell-penetrating peptides as transporters for morpholino oligomers: effects of amino acid composition on intracellular delivery and cytotoxicity

Arginine-rich cell-penetrating peptides (CPPs) are promising transporters for intracellular delivery of antisense morpholino oligomers (PMO). Here, we determined the effect of L-arginine, D-arginine and non-α amino acids on cellular uptake, splice-correction activity, cellular toxicity and serum binding for 24 CPP−PMOs. Insertion of 6-aminohexanoic acid (X) or β-alanine (B) residues into oligoarginine R8 decreased the cellular uptake but increased the splice-correction activity of the resulting compound, with a greater increase for the sequences containing more X residues. Cellular toxicity was not observed for any of the conjugates up to 10 μM. Up to 60 μM, only the conjugates with ⩾ 5 Xs exhibited time- and concentration-dependent toxicity. Substitution of L-arginine with D-arginine did not increase uptake or splice-correction activity. High concentration of serum significantly decreased the uptake and splice-correction activity of oligoarginine conjugates, but had much less effect on the conjugates containing X or B. In summary, incorporation of X/B into oligoarginine enhanced the antisense activity and serum-binding profile of CPP−PMO. Toxicity of X/B-containing conjugates was affected by the number of Xs, treatment time and concentration. More active, stable and less toxic CPPs can be designed by optimizing the position and number of R, D-R, X and B residues

Triangleland. I. Classical dynamics with exchange of relative angular momentum

In Euclidean relational particle mechanics, only relative times, relative angles and relative separations are meaningful. Barbour--Bertotti (1982) theory is of this form and can be viewed as a recovery of (a portion of) Newtonian mechanics from relational premises. This is of interest in the absolute versus relative motion debate and also shares a number of features with the geometrodynamical formulation of general relativity, making it suitable for some modelling of the problem of time in quantum gravity. I also study similarity relational particle mechanics (`dynamics of pure shape'), in which only relative times, relative angles and {\sl ratios of} relative separations are meaningful. This I consider firstly as it is simpler, particularly in 1 and 2 d, for which the configuration space geometry turns out to be well-known, e.g. S^2 for the `triangleland' (3-particle) case that I consider in detail. Secondly, the similarity model occurs as a sub-model within the Euclidean model: that admits a shape--scale split. For harmonic oscillator like potentials, similarity triangleland model turns out to have the same mathematics as a family of rigid rotor problems, while the Euclidean case turns out to have parallels with the Kepler--Coulomb problem in spherical and parabolic coordinates. Previous work on relational mechanics covered cases where the constituent subsystems do not exchange relative angular momentum, which is a simplifying (but in some ways undesirable) feature paralleling centrality in ordinary mechanics. In this paper I lift this restriction. In each case I reduce the relational problem to a standard one, thus obtain various exact, asymptotic and numerical solutions, and then recast these into the original mechanical variables for physical interpretation.Comment: Journal Reference added, minor updates to References and Figure

Seasonal Flight Activity and Distribution of Metallic Woodboring Beetles (Coleoptera: Buprestidae) Collected in North Carolina and Tennessee

Distribution records and seasonal flight activity information for metallic woodboring beetle (Coleoptera: Buprestidae) species have not been compiled for North Carolina and Tennessee. Institutional, research, and private collections in North Carolina and Tennessee were reviewed to provide seasonal activity data of 5 subfamilies of buprestid beetle species. Label information was checked for 15,217 specimens of 135 species collected between 1901 and 2013 (North Carolina) and between 1934 and 2013 (Tennessee). These collections provided data on adult seasonal activity and county records for 121 species (4,467 specimens) and 105 species (10,750 specimens) from North Carolina and Tennessee, respectively. Two species, Agrilus carpini Knull and A. pensus Horn, are reported as New State Records for North Carolina. The data reveal key geographic areas in both states where few to no collections have been made, highlighting opportunities to validate species distributions and locations where future collecting efforts can be matched with the occurrence of larval and adult host plant resources. Seasonal activity records will inform future biosurveillance efforts for invasive and endemic pests and facilitate predictions of buprestid species that are likely to be active within the hunting flight season of Cerceris fumipennis (Say) (Hymenoptera: Crabronidae) wasps. Activity periods of the buprestids also can focus the management of selected economic pest species to times of the year when treatment efforts, particularly through use of contact insecticides, are likely to be most effective

Recognizing Treelike k-Dissimilarities

A k-dissimilarity D on a finite set X, |X| >= k, is a map from the set of size k subsets of X to the real numbers. Such maps naturally arise from edge-weighted trees T with leaf-set X: Given a subset Y of X of size k, D(Y) is defined to be the total length of the smallest subtree of T with leaf-set Y . In case k = 2, it is well-known that 2-dissimilarities arising in this way can be characterized by the so-called "4-point condition". However, in case k > 2 Pachter and Speyer recently posed the following question: Given an arbitrary k-dissimilarity, how do we test whether this map comes from a tree? In this paper, we provide an answer to this question, showing that for k >= 3 a k-dissimilarity on a set X arises from a tree if and only if its restriction to every 2k-element subset of X arises from some tree, and that 2k is the least possible subset size to ensure that this is the case. As a corollary, we show that there exists a polynomial-time algorithm to determine when a k-dissimilarity arises from a tree. We also give a 6-point condition for determining when a 3-dissimilarity arises from a tree, that is similar to the aforementioned 4-point condition.Comment: 18 pages, 4 figure

Map Supplements for The Metallic Woodboring Beetles (Coleoptera: Buprestidae) of Tennessee

Following compilation of distribution records and seasonal flight activity information for 106 metallic wood-boring beetle (Coleoptera: Buprestidae) species for Tennessee, maps were updated to provide county-level collection notations for 10,543 published records and specimen collections made from 1934 to 2013. County collection tallies across the ecoregions in Tennessee are also presented. Maps for individual species highlight gaps in key geographic areas where specimens have not been collected and can be valuable for future biosurveillance, monitoring and management efforts for these economically and ecologically important insects

The role of plasma-atom and molecule interactions on power \& particle balance during detachment on the MAST Upgrade Super-X divertor

First quantitative analysis of the detachment processes in the MAST Upgrade Super-X divertor show an unprecedented impact of plasma-molecular interactions involving molecular ions (likely $D_2^+$), resulting in strong ion sinks, leading to a reduction of ion target flux. This starts to occur as the ionisation source detaches from the target, leading to a build-up of molecules below the ionisation source who get excited, resulting in Molecular Activated Recombination (MAR) and Dissociation (MAD). The particle sinks in the divertor chamber exceed the ion sources in the middle of the detached operational regime before electron-ion recombination (EIR) starts to occur, demonstrating the strong capabilities for particle exhaust in the Super-X Configuration. MAD is the dominant volumetric neutral atom creation mechanism and results in significant power losses. This, combined with electron-impact excitation preceding ionisation, are the dominant power loss mechanisms in the divertor chamber. As the plasma becomes more deeply detached, EIR starts to occur and electron temperatures below 0.2 eV are achieved. Even at such low electron temperature conditions, MAR is observed to be an important ion sink mechanism, which suggests the presence of highly vibrationally excited molecules in the cold detached regime. The total radiative power loss is consistent with extrapolations of spectroscopic inferences to hydrogenic radiative power losses, which suggests that intrinsic impurity radiation, despite the carbon walls, is minor. These observations are observed in Ohmic L-mode, ELM-free H-mode and type I ELMy H-mode discharges