A male-produced aggregation-sex pheromone of the beetle Arhopalus rusticus (Coleoptera: Cerambycidae, Spondylinae) may be useful in managing this invasive species.

The longhorned beetle Arhopalus rusticus (Coleoptera: Cerambycidae, Spondylinae) is a common species in conifer forests of the Northern Hemisphere, but with global trade, it has invaded and become established in New Zealand, Australia, and South America. Arhopalus rusticus is a suspected vector of the phytopathogenic nematode, Bursaphelenchus xylophilus, the causative agent of pine wilt disease, which is a major threat to pine forests worldwide. Here, we report the identification of a volatile, male-produced aggregation-sex pheromone for this species. Headspace odours from males contained a major male-specific compound, identified as (2 S, 5E)-6,10-dimethyl-5,9-undecadien-2-ol (common name (S)-fuscumol), and a minor component (E)-6,10-dimethyl-5,9-undecadien-2-one (geranylacetone). Both compounds are known pheromone components for species in the same subfamily. In field trials in its native range in Slovenia, (S)-fuscumol was significantly more attractive to beetles of both sexes, than racemic fuscumol and a blend of host plant volatiles commonly used as an attractant for this species. Fuscumol-baited traps also caught significant numbers of another spondylidine species, Spondylis buprestoides (L.), and a rare click beetle, Stenagostus rufus (De Geer). The pheromone can be exploited as a cost-effective and environmentally safe tool for detection and monitoring of this invasive species at ports of entry, and for monitoring the beetle's distribution and population trends in both endemic and invasive populations

Novel, male-produced aggregation pheromone of the cerambycid beetle Rosalia alpina, a priority species of European conservation concern.

Several recent studies have demonstrated the great potential for exploiting semiochemicals in ecology and conservation studies. The cerambycid beetle Rosalia alpina represents one of the flagship species of saproxylic insect biodiversity in Europe. In recent years its populations appear to have declined substantially, and its range has shrunk considerably as a result of forest management and urbanization. Here, we collected volatile chemicals released by males and females of R. alpina. Analyses of the resulting extracts revealed the presence of a single male-specific compound, identified as a novel alkylated pyrone structure. In field bioassays in Slovenia, traps baited with the synthesized pyrone captured both sexes of R. alpina, indicating that the pyrone functions as an aggregation pheromone. Our results represent the first example of a new structural class of pheromones within the Cerambycidae, and demonstrate that pheromone-baited traps can provide a useful tool for sampling R. alpina. This tool could be particularly useful in the ongoing development of conservation strategies for the iconic but endangered Alpine longicorn

Isolation and identification of a male-produced aggregation-sex pheromone for the velvet longhorned beetle, Trichoferus campestris.

The velvet longhorned beetle, Trichoferus campestris (Faldermann) ("VLB"; Coleoptera: Cerambycidae), is native to eastern Asia where it infests and damages a wide range of deciduous and coniferous tree species, including orchard and timber species. Immature stages of VLB are transported to new countries via international commerce, and populations have established outside the native range of the species. Here, we show that identification of pheromones of invasive pest species can be expedited by knowledge of the semiochemistry of related taxa. Histological sectioning revealed subcuticular, male-specific prothoracic glands connected to pits in the cuticle, which, in related species, are diagnostic for production of male-produced aggregation-sex pheromones, usually characterized by 2,3-alkanediol/hydroxyketone structural motifs. However, in preliminary field bioassays, beetles were not attracted by any known cerambycid pheromones. Subsequently, we identified a novel variant of the hydroxyketone motif ("trichoferone") from headspace volatiles of males. In field bioassays, synthetic trichoferone was more attractive to both sexes of VLB than previously developed high-release-rate ethanol lures, and attraction was strongly female biased. This study demonstrated the utility of the prothoracic gland trait for predicting pheromone use in cerambycid species in the subfamily Cerambycinae, and that identification of pheromones of novel species can be expedited by knowledge of pheromones of related species. Trichoferone should prove to be a valuable tool for detection of VLB in regions where the beetle is or may become established

ImMesh: An Immediate LiDAR Localization and Meshing Framework

In this paper, we propose a novel LiDAR(-inertial) odometry and mapping framework to achieve the goal of simultaneous localization and meshing in real-time. This proposed framework termed ImMesh comprises four tightly-coupled modules: receiver, localization, meshing, and broadcaster. The localization module utilizes the prepossessed sensor data from the receiver, estimates the sensor pose online by registering LiDAR scans to maps, and dynamically grows the map. Then, our meshing module takes the registered LiDAR scan for incrementally reconstructing the triangle mesh on the fly. Finally, the real-time odometry, map, and mesh are published via our broadcaster. The key contribution of this work is the meshing module, which represents a scene by an efficient hierarchical voxels structure, performs fast finding of voxels observed by new scans, and reconstructs triangle facets in each voxel in an incremental manner. This voxel-wise meshing operation is delicately designed for the purpose of efficiency; it first performs a dimension reduction by projecting 3D points to a 2D local plane contained in the voxel, and then executes the meshing operation with pull, commit and push steps for incremental reconstruction of triangle facets. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first work in literature that can reconstruct online the triangle mesh of large-scale scenes, just relying on a standard CPU without GPU acceleration. To share our findings and make contributions to the community, we make our code publicly available on our GitHub: https://github.com/hku-mars/ImMesh

Assessment of the influence of using green tea waste and fish waste as soil amendments for biosolarization on the growth of lettuce (Lactuca sativa L. var. ramosa Hort.)

IntroductionSafe and efficient treatment of organic waste is crucial to developing a sustainable food system around the world. Soil biosolarization (SBS) is a soil treatment technique that can use organic solid wastes to treat the soil in a way that is alternative to the use of chemical fumigants to improve soil fertility in agriculture.MethodsIn this study, two types of organic food wastes, green tea waste (GTW) and fish waste (FW), were evaluated for the feasibility of being applied as soil amendments within simulations of high-temperature cycle SBS. The evaluation was conducted by execution of three groups of measurements: gas and organic volatile emission profile, residual soil phytotoxicity and weed suppression, and cultivar growth (Lactuca sativa L. var. ramosa Hort.).Results and DiscussionGreen tea waste contributed to elevated levels of soil respiration and the evolution of signature volatile organic compounds during the simulated SBS. In the soil amended with green tea waste and then undergoing SBS the phyto compatibility was restored after residual phytotoxicity dissipation and a complete weed suppression was achieved. By using an application rate of 2.5% (w/w, mass fraction of green tea waste in total soil-waste mixture) green tea waste cultivar growth comparable to that of the non-treated soil (NTS) group was attained, with a more efficient nitrogen utilization and higher residual soil nitrogen content enabling the improvement of the continuous cropping system. FW at 1% (w/w, mass fraction of FW in total soil-waste mixture) promoted cultivar growth despite the significant reduction of the nitrogen (p value=0.02) and phosphorus (p value=0.03) contents in the cultivar leaves. A significant increase of the sodium content together with an increase of iron and chromium, which exceeded the permissible limit, were observed. These results provide new information about amendment selection for the SBS process

Worldwide tests of generic attractants, a promising tool for early detection of non-native cerambycid species

A large proportion of the insects which have invaded new regions and countries are emerging species, being found for the first time outside their native range. Being able to detect such species upon arrival at ports of entry before they establish in non-native countries is an urgent challenge. The deployment of traps baited with broad-spectrum semiochemical lures at ports-of-entry and other high-risk sites could be one such early detection tool. Rapid progress in the identification of semiochemicals for cerambycid beetles during the last 15 years has revealed that aggregation-sex pheromones and sex pheromones are often conserved at global levels for genera, tribes or subfamilies of the Cerambycidae. This possibly allows the development of generic attractants which attract multiple species simultaneously, especially when such pheromones are combined into blends. Here, we present the results of a worldwide field trial programme conducted during 2018-2021, using traps baited with a standardised 8-pheromone blend, usually com-plemented with plant volatiles. A total of 1308 traps were deployed at 302 sites covering simultaneously or sequentially 13 European countries, 10 Chinese provinces and some regions of the USA, Canada, Australia, Russia (Siberia) and the Caribbean (Martinique). We intended to test the following hypotheses: 1) if a species is regularly trapped in significant numbers by the blend on a continent, it increases the prob-ability that it can be detected when it arrives in other countries/continents and 2) if the blend exerts an effective, generic attraction to multiple species, it is likely that previously unknown and unexpected spe-cies can be captured due to the high degree of conservation of pheromone structures within related taxa. A total of 78,321 longhorned beetles were trapped, representing 376 species from eight subfamilies, with 84 species captured in numbers greater than 50 individuals. Captures comprised 60 tribes, with 10 tribes including more than nine species trapped on different continents. Some invasive species were captured in both the native and invaded continents. This demonstrates the potential of multipheromone lures as ef-fective tools for the detection of 'unexpected' cerambycid invaders, accidentally translocated outside their native ranges. Adding new pheromones with analogous well-conserved motifs is discussed, as well as the limitations of using such blends, especially for some cerambycid taxa which may be more attracted by the trap colour or other characteristics rather than to the chemical blend

Analysis of the Long Tail Problem in Semantic Segmentation with 3D Point Clouds

3D semantic segmentation of point cloud data has recently been a topic studied by many researchers. The problem setting is to classify each pixel on a 3D point cloud as part of a specific class. This technique has been adopted in various industrial applications, such as autonomous driving. However, these real-world applications require not only fast inference time from the model side but also high accuracy. However, the long-tailed distribution of the semantic classes exists in nearly all datasets. This means some classes are seen much less than other classes during the training process. This usually leads to a downgrading in performance for the tail classes. In this work, we study different ways of tackling the long-tail problem and achieving better performance in tail classes. MinkowskiEngine is our backbone model(a state-of-the-art semantic segmentation network in 3D point clouds). On top of it, we experiment with various loss functions and data augmentation strategies. Our final model, combining mixing scenes and two-stage learning, achieves a distinct improvement regarding the mean IoU across the 200 classes. It also improves mainly the minor classes, which provides insight into tackling the problem of the long-tailed distribution. Such a combination can become a generic learning framework for future research in 3D semantic segmentation, especially when the performance in minor classes is highly valued

Models for the Structure and Function of the Ethylene Receptor

A chemical model for the ethylene receptor in higher plants has been supported through the synthesis, spectroscopy, and structural characterization of several copper complexes with model ligands representing those in the native receptor protein, combined with alkene ligands. Some corresponding silver complexes have been investigated owing to the well-known effects of silver ion as an inhibitor of ethylene physiological action

Cost-effectiveness analysis of water-saving irrigation technologies based on climate change response : A case study of China

This study provides a cost-effectiveness analysis of four water-saving irrigation techniques that are widely implemented in China to address the impacts of climate change: sprinkler irrigation, micro-irrigation, low-pressure pipe irrigation and channel lining. The aim is to thoroughly understand the economic feasibility of water-saving irrigation as an approach to coping with climate change. Based on the cost-effectiveness analysis, this study finds that water-saving irrigation is cost-effective in coping with climate change, and has benefits for climate change mitigation and adaptation, and for sustainable economic development. For the cost-effectiveness ratio of mitigation and adaptation, only that of channel lining is negative (for mitigation is -43.02 to -73.41US$/t, for grain yield increase -34.35 to -20.13US$/t, and for water saving -0.020 to -0.012US$/m3). Sprinkler irrigation has the highest incremental cost for mitigation (476.03-691.64US$/t), because when sprinkler irrigation is used, there may be additional energy needs to meet water pressure requirements, which may increase greenhouse gas emissions compared to traditional irrigation. For mitigation, in districts where the pumping head for pressure is lower than the critical energy saving head, sprinkler irrigation should be avoided. Micro-irrigation has the highest incremental cost for adaptation followed by sprinkler irrigation and low-pressure pipe irrigation, but when considering the revenues from improved adaptation, all of the measures assessed are economically feasible. The results suggest that for mitigation and adaptation objectives, micro-irrigation performs best. From an economic perspective, channel lining is recommended. Therefore, a balanced development of channel lining and micro-irrigation according to different geographical conditions is recommended

Novel, male-produced aggregation pheromone of the cerambycid beetle Rosalia alpina, a priority species of European conservation concern.

Several recent studies have demonstrated the great potential for exploiting semiochemicals in ecology and conservation studies. The cerambycid beetle Rosalia alpina represents one of the flagship species of saproxylic insect biodiversity in Europe. In recent years its populations appear to have declined substantially, and its range has shrunk considerably as a result of forest management and urbanization. Here, we collected volatile chemicals released by males and females of R. alpina. Analyses of the resulting extracts revealed the presence of a single male-specific compound, identified as a novel alkylated pyrone structure. In field bioassays in Slovenia, traps baited with the synthesized pyrone captured both sexes of R. alpina, indicating that the pyrone functions as an aggregation pheromone. Our results represent the first example of a new structural class of pheromones within the Cerambycidae, and demonstrate that pheromone-baited traps can provide a useful tool for sampling R. alpina. This tool could be particularly useful in the ongoing development of conservation strategies for the iconic but endangered Alpine longicorn