Genetic Variation and Species Distribution of Subterranean Termites in the Southeastern U.S. Focusing on Family Structure and the Invasive Formosan Subterranean Termite

This work applies molecular genetic tools to distinguish the identity and understand the biology of termites, particularly Reticulitermes Holmgren and Coptotermes formosanus Shiraki (Isoptera: Rhinotermitidae) in the southeastern U.S. Termites are important economic pests costing billions of dollars annually to Americans but also are important wood decomposers in natural settings. Molecular tools are essential for species identification because of the morphological ambiguities among species. The cryptic nest structure of subterranean termites which prevents adequate sampling makes molecular genetic tools essential to examine an entire colony. A molecular diagnostic technique was created to differentiate Coptotermes formosanus, an invasive species in the U.S., from native subterranean termites. Using a multiplex PCR protocol, this method can distinguish C. formosanus even from a single specimen or sample lacking the diagnostic castes. In southern Mississippi, a new termite species was observed and confirmed genetically. Using both morphological and molecular phylogenetic evidence, Reticulitermes mississippiensis Janowiecki, Szalanski, and Austin sp. nov. is described here as a new species. The breeding structure of a termite colony refers to the number of male and female termites reproducing in the colony that contribute to the genetic diversity of the colony. While this is near impossible to determine from a field census, microsatellite DNA analysis has been previously applied to investigate this biological aspect in the North Carolina, South Carolina, Massachusetts, and Tennessee. Here, we apply these techniques to three species of Reticulitermes from three sites in northwest Arkansas. Generally, our results were similar to those previously observed with 22% of the colonies being simple families (one male and one female), 72% extended families (the offspring of one male and one female reproducing) and 6% being mixed families (where multiple unrelated reproductives are reproducing in the colony). This study observed the first mixed family colonies of Reticulitermes hageni Banks. While these results show interesting trends of family structure for each species, more sampling is required to verify these observations

From Siloed to Reusable

In the past twenty-five years, cross-institutional communities have come together in the creation and use of open source software and open data standards to build digital collections (Madden, 2012). These librarians, developers, archivists, artists, and researchers recognize that the custom-built architectures and bespoke data structures of earlier digital collections development are unsustainable. Their collaborations have produced now-standard technologies such as Samvera, Fedora, GeoBlacklight, Islandora 8, as well as RDF, and JSON-LD among other open schemas. A core principle animating these efforts is reusability: data, schemas, and technologies in the open era must be coherent and flexible enough to be reused across multiple digital contexts. The authors of this paper show how reuse guided the migration of the Hopkins Digital Library from an outdated isolated system to a sustainable interconnected environment in GeoBlacklight, Islandora, with metadata based in Linked Open Data. Three areas of reuse focus this paper: the creation of robust interoperable metadata; the expansion of IIIF functionality to integrate the needs of the Hopkins Geoportal’s users; the development of a broadly re/usable data migration module focused on expanding a diverse community of invested users. In focusing on reusability as an organising principle of digital collections development, this case study shows how one digital curation team produced a platform that meets the changing and specific needs of an individual institution, on the one hand, and participated in and furthered the creative coherence of the open communities supporting the team’s work, on the other

Detection of an Optical Counterpart to the ALFALFA Ultra-compact High Velocity Cloud AGC 249525

We report on the detection at $>$98% confidence of an optical counterpart to AGC 249525, an Ultra-Compact High Velocity Cloud (UCHVC) discovered by the ALFALFA blind neutral hydrogen survey. UCHVCs are compact, isolated HI clouds with properties consistent with their being nearby low-mass galaxies, but without identified counterparts in extant optical surveys. Analysis of the resolved stellar sources in deep $g$- and $i$-band imaging from the WIYN pODI camera reveals a clustering of possible Red Giant Branch stars associated with AGC 249525 at a distance of 1.64$\pm$0.45 Mpc. Matching our optical detection with the HI synthesis map of AGC 249525 from Adams et al. (2016) shows that the stellar overdensity is exactly coincident with the highest-density HI contour from that study. Combining our optical photometry and the HI properties of this object yields an absolute magnitude of $-7.1 \leq M_V \leq -4.5$, a stellar mass between $2.2\pm0.6\times10^4 M_{\odot}$ and $3.6\pm1.0\times10^5 M_{\odot}$, and an HI to stellar mass ratio between 9 and 144. This object has stellar properties within the observed range of gas-poor Ultra-Faint Dwarfs in the Local Group, but is gas-dominated.Comment: 9 pages, 4 figures; accepted to ApJ

Population Growth Characteristics of Incipient Colonies of the Eastern Subterranean Termite, Reticulitermes flavipes (Kollar) (Isoptera: Rhinotermitidae)

Growth of Reticulitermes flavipes (Kollar) incipient colonies during their first year was documented via a monthly destructive sampling census of 15 unique colonies, each headed by an inbred primary pair, for a total of 180 colonies. King and queen biomass greatly decreased during the first 2 months, coinciding with egg production and colony foundation, but their biomass remained relatively constant thereafter. Three cohorts of eggs were produced, with the greatest number of eggs (mean = 14.5) during the first month. Larvae were present at 1 month, and workers were first observed at 2 months. The survival rate of the initial brood was less than 100%, most likely due to cannibalism. A single soldier was first noted in some colonies at 6 months. Offspring biomass was equal to that of the reproductive pair at the 2-month census, double at 3 months, and quadruple at 11 months. One-year-old colonies ranged in size from 20 to 40 individuals, with an average of 28.9 individuals; total colony biomass was 39.8 mg. The growth rate of these R. flavipes colonies was much slower than was reported in other studies, but our observations are consistent with previous models and suggestions regarding colony growth

xGASS: gas-rich central galaxies in small groups and their connections to cosmic web gas feeding

We use deep H I observations obtained as part of the extended GALEX Arecibo SDSS survey (xGASS) to study the cold gas properties of central galaxies across environments. We find that below stellar masses of 1010.2 M⊙, central galaxies in groups have an average atomic hydrogen gas fraction ∼0.3 dex higher than those in isolation at the same stellar mass. At these stellar masses, group central galaxies are usually found in small groups of N = 2 members. The higher H I content in these low-mass group central galaxies is mirrored by their higher average star formation activity and molecular hydrogen content. At larger stellar masses, this difference disappears and central galaxies in groups have similar (or even smaller) gas reservoirs and star formation activity compared to those in isolation. We discuss possible scenarios able to explain our findings and suggest that the higher gas content in low-mass group central galaxies is likely due to the contributions from the cosmic web or H I-rich minor mergers, which also fuel their enhanced star formation activity