Matching commercial thrips predating phytoseids with the highly diversified climatic conditions of different strawberry production systems

Flower inhabiting thrips (Order: Thysanoptera) are a major threat to fruit quality in strawberry production around the world. As chemical control is often inefficient, alternative control measures are of broad and current interest. Their fast reproduction makes predatory mites highly suitable for thrips control in a crop with a relatively short cropping season like strawberry. However, climatic conditions of strawberry production can differ strongly depending on the production system (glasshouse, plastic tunnel, open field, etc.) and the time span of cultivation (depending mostly on planting date and the type of cultivar: summer-or everbearing). As predatory mites typically display a temperature-dependent life history and the current commercially available thrips predating phytoseids vary in geographic origin, one can assume that under certain climatic conditions some species will be more applicable than others. The goal of this study is to determine which species are suitable for which climatic conditions. Therefore all (Belgian) production systems and time spans are categorized into three climate types, simulated in the laboratory. The population build-up of seven predatory mite species (A. degenerans, A. montdorensis, A. andersoni, A. limonicus, A. swirskii, N. cucumeris and E. gallicus) were assessed for each of these climatic conditions. Under the coldest condition (A), the in West-Europe indigenous E. gallicus was the only species with a significant population build up. When moderate conditions (B) were simulated E. gallicus, N. cucumeris and A. limonicus were most successful. The warmest regime (C) was most adequate for E. gallicus and A. swirskii

WorldFAIR Project (D10.1) Agriculture-related pollinator data standards use cases report

Although pollination is an essential ecosystem service that sustains life on Earth, data on this vital process is largely scattered or unavailable, limiting our understanding of the current state of pollinators and hindering effective actions for their conservation and sustainable management. In addition to the well-known challenges of biodiversity data management, such as taxonomic accuracy, the recording of biotic interactions like pollination presents further difficulties in proper representation and sharing. Currently, the widely-used standard for representing biodiversity data, Darwin Core, lacks properties that allow for adequately handling biotic interaction data, and there is a need for FAIR vocabularies for properly representing plant-pollinator interactions. Given the importance of mobilising plant-pollinator interaction data also for food production and security, the Research Data Alliance Improving Global Agricultural Data Community of Practice has brought together partners from representative groups to address the challenges of advancing interoperability and mobilising plant-pollinator data for reuse. This report presents an overview of projects, good practices, tools, and examples for creating, managing and sharing data related to plant-pollinator interactions, along with a work plan for conducting pilots in the next phase of the project. We present the main existing data indexing systems and aggregators for plant-pollinator interaction data, as well as citizen science and community-based sourcing initiatives. We also describe current challenges for taxonomic knowledge and present two data models and one semantic tool that will be explored in the next phase. In preparation for the next phase, which will provide best practices and FAIR-aligned guidelines for documenting and sharing plant-pollinator interactions based on pilot efforts with data, this Case Study comprehensively examined the methods and platforms used to create and share such data. By understanding the nature of data from various sources and authors, the alignment of the retrieved datasets with the FAIR principles was also taken into consideration. We discovered that a large amount of data on plant-pollinator interaction is made available as supplementary files of research articles in a diversity of formats and that there are opportunities for improving current practices for data mobilisation in this domain. The diversity of approaches and the absence of appropriate data vocabularies causes confusion, information loss, and the need for complex data interpretation and transformation. Our explorations and analyses provided valuable insights for structuring the next phase of the project, including the selection of the pilot use cases and the development of a ‘FAIR best practices’ guide for sharing plant-pollinator interaction data. This work primarily focuses on enhancing the interoperability of data on plant-pollinator interactions, envisioning its connection with the effort WorldFAIR is undertaking to develop a Cross-Domain Interoperability Framework. Visit WorldFAIR online at http://worldfair-project.eu. WorldFAIR is funded by the EC HORIZON-WIDERA-2021-ERA-01-41 Coordination and Support Action under Grant Agreement No. 101058393

SYNTHESYS+ Virtual Access - Report on the Ideas Call (October to November 2019)

The SYNTHESYS consortium has been operational since 2004, and has facilitated physical access by individual researchers to European natural history collections through its Transnational Access programme (TA). For the first time, SYNTHESYS+ will be offering virtual access to collections through digitisation, with two calls for the programme, the first in 2020 and the second in 2021. The Virtual Access (VA) programme is not a direct digital parallel of Transnational Access - proposals for collections digitisation will be prioritised and carried out based on community demand, and data must be made openly available immediately. A key feature of Virtual Access is that, unlike TA, it does not select the researchers to whom access is provided. Because Virtual Access in this way is new to the community and to the collections-holding institutions, the SYNTHESYS+ consortium invited ideas through an Ideas Call, that opened on 7th October 2019 and closed on 22nd November 2019, in order to assess interest and to trial procedures. This report is intended to provide feedback to those who participated in the Ideas Call and to help all applicants to the first SYNTHESYS+Virtual Access Call that will be launched on 20th of February 2020.This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY 4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. The attached file is the published pdf

Evidence of tetragonal distortion as the origin of the ferromagnetic ground state in γ-Fe nanoparticles

γ-Fe and related alloys are model systems of the coupling between structure and magnetism in solids. Since different electronic states (with different volumes and magnetic ordering states) are closely spaced in energy, small perturbations can alter which one is the actual ground state. Here, we demonstrate that the ferromagnetic state of γ-Fe nanoparticles is associated with a tetragonal distortion of the fcc structure. Combining a wide range of complementary experimental techniques, including low-temperature Mössbauer spectroscopy, advanced transmission electron microscopy, and synchrotron radiation techniques, we unambiguously identify the tetragonally distorted ferromagnetic ground state, with lattice parameters a=3.76(2)Å and c=3.50(2)Å, and a magnetic moment of 2.45(5) μB per Fe atom. Our findings indicate that the ferromagnetic order in nanostructured γ-Fe is generally associated with a tetragonal distortion. This observation motivates a theoretical reassessment of the electronic structure of γ-Fe taking tetragonal distortion into account.The authors thank the Fund for Scientific ResearchFlanders, the Concerted Research Action of the KU Leuven (GOA/14/007), the KU Leuven BOF (STRT/14/002), the Hercules Foundation, the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology (CERN/FIS-NUC/0004/2015), and the European Union Seventh Framework through ENSAR2 (European Nuclear Science and Applications Research, Project No. 654002), and SPIRIT (Support of Public and Industrial Research Using Ion Beam Technology, Contract No. 227012). We acknowledge the European Synchrotron Radiation Facility (ESRF) for providing beam time (experiments 26-01-1018, 26-01-1057, 20-02-728, HC-1850, HC-2208), as well as C. Baehtz, N. Boudet, and N. Blancand for support during the experiments. We acknowledge the ISOLDE-CERN facility for providing beam time (experiment IS580) and technical assistance. The authors (L.M.C.P., F.K.) acknowledge the facilities and the scientific and technical assistance of the Australian Microscopy & Microanalysis Research Facility at the Centre for Advanced Microscopy, Australian National University. We also acknowledge the contribution of Prof. Mark Ridgway (Australian National University), who passed away before the work was completed

The ubiquity of beauty-is-good in media: Understanding the importance of appearance in adolescents’ lives

For decades now, scholars have called attention to the possible consequences of adolescents' immersion in an appearance culture that glorifies and reinforces physical attractiveness. This concern for adolescents' development is partly triggered by mass and social media's idealization of multiple aspects of life by presenting them in a reinforcing and rewarding setting. Not surprisingly, then, prior research has often used the claim that rewards might instigate certain media effects. Despite scholars' extensive effort to study the association between the appearance culture and adolescents' body image investment, however, our understanding of how the idealization of physical attractiveness fits into this association remains limited. Therefore, the current dissertation studies, for the first time, whether the reward value of appearance ideals might serve as the leitmotif of adolescents' investment in appearance ideals. In addition, a review of the literature points at adolescents' active investment in their appearance as another issue that remains understudied. Following the lacunas in the literature, the current dissertation aims to contribute to a more nuanced understanding of the association between sociocultural factors and youth's (behavioral) body image investment. In doing so, we found that the literature reveals multiple theoretical perspectives but a lack of overarching theoretical principles to explain all the observed effects. In an attempt to integrate the multiple theoretical perspectives that exist in body image literature, we searched for transferrable constructs. This search culminated in an innovative perspective that (1) includes the reward value of appearance ideals as a trigger of the cognitive acceptance and integration of ideals into adolescents' self-concept and (2) considers both cognitive and behavioral aspects of body image investment. In addition, the current dissertation aims to take into account the multidimensionality of contemporary appearance ideals that are embedded in a sexualizing culture that adolescents can become invested in. To address these research aims, two studies were conducted. First, preadolescent girls and boys (aged 9 to 14 years) filled out paper-and-pencil questionnaires at three different time points. This design allowed us to conduct cross-sectional and longitudinal analyses. Second, a multi-method study was conducted whereby adolescents (aged 12 to 18 years) filled out a paper-and-pencil questionnaire and their Facebook profile pictures were content-analyzed. This design allowed us to conduct cross-sectional analyses and provided a more objective measure of behavioral body image investment. The main conclusion that can be drawn from the current dissertation's findings is that sociocultural factors influence (appearance) behavior if individuals have cognitively accepted and internalized the learned appearance ideals into their self-image. It is this internal influence (personal attitudes and values towards appearance) that affects behavior. Importantly, this cognitive processing of appearance information and incorporation of appearance ideals into adolescents' body image - not behavior - was found to be triggered by their perception of attractiveness as rewarded. As such, the contribution of the current dissertation lies in revealing an internalized socialization process; adolescents first become aware of the prevailing appearance standards in society through the interactions within the appearance culture (i.e., socialization). Next, their socialization into the prevailing appearance norms is cognitively accepted and internalized as an aspect of their self-image which, in turn, affects their behavioral body image investment. A second conclusion refers to the multidimensionality of contemporary appearance ideals. Specifically, the literature indicates that appearance ideals in contemporary society are not only focused on body composition (thinness/muscularity) but consist of multiple features that are increasingly centered around sexual attractiveness. The findings of the current dissertation are in line with this reasoning. Specifically, we found that although body composition remains an important aspect of the ideal appearance, exercising for a good physique was accompanied with hair styling and wearing short (girls) and tight (boys) clothing as most prevalent appearance behaviors among adolescents. As such, we conclude adolescents' active (i.e., behavioral) participation in a sexualizing culture by engaging in behaviors to comply with sexualizing appearance ideals. Lastly, the findings demonstrate that adolescents' investment - both cognitively and behaviorally - in their body image most likely stems from peer rather than mediated encounters with the multidimensional and sexualized ideal. Furthermore, the findings also point at the interrelatedness of peers and media, thereby corroborating prior claims that peer interactions are a particularly strong source of information by providing self-relevant information, but that media exposure might fuel what is discussed among peers. Specifically, if having a sexualized appearance is approved of and rewarded by peers, adolescents will be more likely to internalize these standards and engage in behaviors to approximate the sexualized ideal. Therefore, it is concluded that exposure to appearance ideals in media can influence adolescents, once they learn how peers appraise the ideal.status: publishe

The Impact of the north american waterburg Thrichocoria verticalis (Fieber) on aquatic macroinvertebrate comminities in southern Europe

The North American waterbug Trichocorixa verticalis (Heteroptera: Corixidae) has recently invaded brackish water systems on three continents. Despite its potential to be a keystone species in hypersaline waters in its home range, its effect on the communities it invades is yet unstudied. By doing a field survey in 29 ponds in Doñana, southern Europe some years after T. verticalis was first recorded there, we aimed to establish its prevalence and im- pact on the local invertebrate community, especially the local corixid community with which it is likely to compete. T. verticalis showed the highest prevalence among all seven Corixidae species found. It occasionally reached high local abundance, especially at high salinity. T. verticalis also appeared to be better than native Corixidae at coping with human disturbance. We could not identify significant effects of T. verticalis on the local corixid community nor on the invertebrate community at large. Further experimental research will be needed to confirm these results. Special attention should be paid to hypersaline systems where T. verticalis may act as a top predator.Peer reviewe

Is salinity tolerance the key to success for the invasive water bug Trichocorixa verticalis?

Trichocorixa verticalis is a North Amer- ican water bug (Heteroptera: Corixidae) that occurs in brackish and saline aquatic systems. Recently, it has been found invading three continents including Europe. Its invasive success has been attributed to the capacity of tolerating hypersalinity. We compared both the realized and standardized salinity niche of invasive T. verticalis and native Corixidae to verify if T. verticalis may fill in an unoccupied niche. We first established the field distribution of T. verticalis and native Corixidae along a salinity gradient. Second, we experimentally tested the salinity tolerance of T. verticalis and three common native Corixidae spe- cies. Of the seven Corixidae species found in the field study, three were positively related to the salinity gradient: S. selecta, S. stagnalis, and T. verticalis. T. verticalis showed the highest salinity optimum, however, after correcting for environmental back- ground variation, salinity optima differed little among the three halophilic species. In the salinity tolerance experiment, S. selecta outperformed T. verticalis, which performed as well as S. stagnalis. Based on our experimental results, we cannot support the hypoth- esis that T. verticalis’ invasion is mediated by a high salinity tolerance that allows this species to colonize habitats unoccupied by native Corixidae. Although these findings contrast with the field patterns in which T. verticalis showed the highest niche optimum and tolerance, these patterns may have been partly due to other environmental factors, particularly anthropo- genic disturbance. Our comparative results are for adults only, and it remains possible that relative salinity tolerance patterns for juveniles differ from that for adults, which may add to the observed field pattern.Peer reviewe

Prey colonization in freshwater landscapes can be stimulated or inhibited by the proximity of remote predators

1. Recent findings suggest that the colonization of habitat patches may be affected by the quality of surrounding patches. For instance, patches that lack predators may be avoided when located near others with predators, a pattern known as risk contagion. Alternatively, predator avoidance might also redirect dispersal towards nearby predator‐free patches resulting in so‐called habitat compression. However, it is largely unknown how predators continue to influence these habitat selection behaviours at increasing distances from outside of their own habitat patch. In addition, current information is derived from artificial mesocosm experiments, while support from natural ecosystems is lacking. 2. This study used bromeliad landscapes as a natural model system to study how oviposition habitat selection of Diptera responds to the cues of a distant predator, the carnivorous elephant mosquito larva. 3. We established landscapes containing predator‐free bromeliad habitat patches placed at increasing distances from a predator‐containing patch, along with replicate control landscapes. These patches were then left to be colonized by ovipositing bromeliad insects. 4. We found that distance to predators modulates habitat selection decisions. Moreover, different dipteran families had different responses suggesting different habitat selection strategies. In some families, predator‐free patches at certain distances from the predator patch were avoided, confirming risk contagion. In other families, these patches received higher numbers of colonists providing evidence of predator‐induced habitat compression. 5. We confirm that effects of predators in a natural ecosystem can extend beyond the patch in which the predator is present and that the presence or absence of remote predator effects on habitat selection depends on the distance to predators. The notion that perceived habitat quality can depend on conditions in neighbouring patches forces habitat selection studies to adopt a landscape perspective and account for the effects of both present and remote predators when explaining community assembly in metacommunities