Insect pests of horses in Missouri

Loose leaf memo from Extension Publications in book"The role of horses in our society has changed dramatically in recent years. In the past, horses were used for transportation and agricultural production, but now they are enjoyed as pets and recreational animals. Missouri is home for almost 250,000 horses. Most horse owners are eager to provide the best health care possible for their animals and realizes a sound external parasite control program is necessary. When combined with good feed, shelter, regular exercise, foot care, vaccinations and protection from accidents or contagious diseases, equine parasite control can maximize the pleasure derived from horse ownership."--IntroductionRobert D. Hall and Flernoy G. Jones (Extension Livestock Entomologists), Kathleen E. Doisy (Research Technician)Department of Entomology, University of Missouri--Columbi

Planet Hunters TESS. V. A Planetary System Around a Binary Star, Including a Mini-Neptune in the Habitable Zone

We report on the discovery and validation of a transiting long-period mini-Neptune orbiting a bright (V = 9.0 mag) G dwarf (TOI 4633; R = 1.05 R ⊙, M = 1.10 M ⊙). The planet was identified in data from the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite by citizen scientists taking part in the Planet Hunters TESS project. Modelling of the transit events yields an orbital period of 271.9445 ± 0.0040 days and radius of 3.2 ± 0.20 R ⊕. The Earth-like orbital period and an incident flux of 1.56−0.16+0.20 F ⊕ places it in the optimistic habitable zone around the star. Doppler spectroscopy of the system allowed us to place an upper mass limit on the transiting planet and revealed a non-transiting planet candidate in the system with a period of 34.15 ± 0.15 days. Furthermore, the combination of archival data dating back to 1905 with new high angular resolution imaging revealed a stellar companion orbiting the primary star with an orbital period of around 230 yr and an eccentricity of about 0.9. The long period of the transiting planet, combined with the high eccentricity and close approach of the companion star makes this a valuable system for testing the formation and stability of planets in binary systems

Fly control on beef cattle (1988)

"Flies that attack beef cattle are of two general groups--non-biting, those with sponging mouth parts, and biting, those with piercing-sucking mouth parts. Non-biting includes face flies and house flies. Biting includes horn flies, stable flies, horse flies and many species of small gnats."--First page.Robert D. Hall, Flernoy G. Jones and Kathy E. Doisy (Department of Entomology, College of Agriculture)Revised 3/88/4.5

Transcriptional Pathology Evolves over Time in Rat Hippocampus after Lateral Fluid Percussion Traumatic Brain Injury.

Traumatic brain injury (TBI) causes acute and lasting impacts on the brain, driving pathology along anatomical, cellular, and behavioral dimensions. Rodent models offer an opportunity to study the temporal progression of disease from injury to recovery. Transcriptomic and epigenomic analysis were applied to evaluate gene expression in ipsilateral hippocampus at 1 and 14 days after sham (n = 2 and 4, respectively per time point) and moderate lateral fluid percussion injury (n = 4 per time point). This enabled the identification of dynamic changes and differential gene expression (differentially expressed genes; DEGs) modules linked to underlying epigenetic response. We observed acute signatures associated with cell death, astrocytosis, and neurotransmission that largely recovered by 2 weeks. Inflammation and immune signatures segregated into upregulated modules with distinct expression trajectories and functions. Whereas most down-regulated genes recovered by 14 days, two modules with delayed and persistent changes were associated with cholesterol metabolism, amyloid beta clearance, and neurodegeneration. Differential expression was paralleled by changes in histone H3 lysine residue 4 trimethylation at the promoters of DEGs at 1 day post-TBI, with the strongest changes observed for inflammation and immune response genes. These results demonstrate how integrated genomics analysis in the pre-clinical setting has the potential to identify stage-specific biomarkers for injury and/or recovery. Though limited in scope here, our general strategy has the potential to capture pathological signatures over time and evaluate treatment efficacy at the systems level

The role of models in management and conservation of weeds

Session 7 - Options and perspectives in weed managementEASPEEcolDurCT1Weeds are both a harmful crop pest and an important component of biodiversity. Moreover, herbicide use must be reduced to limit its impact on environment, and weed control must now combine numerous management techniques with partial efficiency aiming at preventing weed occurrence. Biological regulations of weeds by other biotic components could also contribute to control infestations. Thus, new cropping systems are needed, combining numerous techniques and aiming at both maximising weed-related biodiversity and minimising weed harmfulness.[br/]Weed dynamics models are increasingly used to design innovative cropping systems but usually only consider weed densities and crop yield. The objective of the present work was to illustrate with an existing model how these models can be improved to (1) integrate new knowledge and management techniques, (2) integrate biotic interactions and to assess weed-related harmfulness and biodiversity, and then (3) used to evaluate and design innovative cropping systems.[br/]The FLORSYS model is to date the only multispecific weed dynamics model that integrates the effect of all cropping system components (crop succession, all management techniques) in interaction with pedoclimate. It is a mechanistic (i.e. process-based) model which synthesizes data from different experiments and teams and easily evolves to integrate new knowledge or management techniques. For instance, additional processes (e.g. the blocking of weed seed rain to soil seed banks by permanent grass canopies) were recently added to FLORSYS to adapt it to temporary grassland in arable crop rotations (Doisy et al., this conference). These complex models are though more difficult to validate with field observations, a step still underway for FLORSYS.[br/]To integrate biotic interactions with other organism in weed models, new submodels are needed to quantify the effect (1) of cropping systems on the new organism (here the fungus [i]Gaeumannomyces graminis[/i] var. [i]tritici[/i] responsible for the take-all disease in cereals), (2) of the new organism on weeds (here the decrease in seed production of diseased weed plants) and (3) of weeds on the new organism (here pathogen propagation by diseased weed plants). To assess weed-related harmfulness and biodiversity in cropping systems, the predicted weed densities must be translated into indicators. In the present work, five harmfulness indicators (crop yield loss, technical harvest problems, harvest pollution, field infestation and additional crop disease incidence caused by fungi-transmitting weed species) and five biodiversity indicators (species richness, species equitability, seed resource for birds and insects, pollen/nectar resource for pollinators) were constructed and connected to FLORSYS (Mézière et al., this conference). These models are interesting for a large range of applications. At short-term, they can be used to optimize individual management techniques in different weed flora contexts, e.g. FLORSYS was used to evaluate different crop sowing strategies (sowing densities and patterns, crop associations etc.). More interestingly, these models can simulate existing cropping systems over several years and with different climate scenarios to test their long-term and climatic robustness. FLORSYS was thus used to evaluate a large range of cropping systems identified in farm surveys and to identify cultural practices pertinent for controlling weed harmful and preserving biodiversity. However, the major interest of models is to test prospective cultural techniques and cropping systems. FLORSYS is now used to evaluate the changes in agricultural practices (e.g. simplified tillage and rotations, no-till, temporary crops, Colbach et al., this conference). Currently, our team is working on a simulation-based methodology to design prospective cropping systems with low herbicide use, minimising weed-related harmfulness and maximising biodiversity