Performance of Two Fruit Fly (Diptera: Tephritidae) Pupal Parasitoids (Coptera haywardi [Hymenoptera: Diapriidae] and Pachycrepoideus vindemiae [Hymenoptera: Pteromalidae]) under Different Environmental Soil Conditions

We evaluated the performance of Coptera haywardi (Ogloblin) (Diapriidae) and Pachycrepoideus vindemiae (Rondani) (Pteromalidae), both hymenopteran pupal parasitoids of Anastrepha spp. (Diptera: Tephritidae). Performance was studied by manipulating the following environmental conditions in the laboratory: (1) soil type, (2) soil moisture content, (3) soil compaction, and (4) depth at which pupae were buried in the soil. There were two experiments: in the first, exposure time of pupae was held constant and in the second, it varied. In the first experiment, C. haywardi was significantly more effective than P. vindemiae in parasitizing fly pupae. With exposure time held constant (36 h), only soil type and pupal burial depth were significantly related to parasitism rates. While P. vindemiae only parasitized pupae located on the soil surface, C. haywardi attacked pupae that were buried up to 5 cm deep, performing better in clayey than in loamy soil. In the second experiment, exposure time (24, 36, 48, and 72 h) had no significant effect on parasitism rates, but soil type did. P. vindemiae again only attacked pupae on the soil surface while C. haywardi was also able to parasitize pupae that were buried up to 5 cm deep. We conclude that C. haywardi represents a viable candidate to replace the environmentally unfriendly P. vindemiae in augmentative biological control programs against fruit flies.     

Host plant growth characteristics as determinants of abundance and phenology in jumping plant-lice on downy willow

1. Salix lapponum host plants at an upper altitudinal site differed significantly in size, structural density, phenology, growth performance, and spatial isolation from those growing at a lower site. 2. Plant differences were paralleled by significant differences in psyllid population density and phenology parameters, with psyllid population density, percentage of catkins occupied, and phenological development relatively lower or retarded at the upper site. Population densities at the upper site, nevertheless, remained high. 3. Plant measurements were good predictors of insect density, often explaining up to 73% of the variance in abundance among plants at a given site. 4. Sets of four plant characters identified by best subsets regression were better predictors of psyllid density and development than single factors, although differences were often not great and the combinations of characters selected by multiple regression sometimes differed from the best single predictors. 5. Best single predictors of psyllid density on catkins were measurements of plant size, particularly height, length, and basal stem diameter. Shoot density and catkin phenology were occasionally important but plant isolation and prior growth performance were less important. 6. By contrast with density, age structure of the psyllid population was predicted best from plant phenological measurements, notably catkin phenology.     

An upper limit to the abundance of aquatic organisms

Summary The maximum density achievable by aquatic organisms is an inverse linear function of their body size. As a consequence, the maximum achievable biomass is independent of body size, and is 2 orders of magnitude higher than the biomass in natural populations. The minimum interorganismic terorganismic distance, calculated from the maximum density to allow comparison between aquatic and terrestrial organisms, scales as the 1/3 power of body size in both habitats. The similarities in the interorganismic distance of terrestrial and aquatic plant and animal communities suggest a fundamental regularity in the way organisms use the space.     

The influence of aggregate size and drannage potential on germination of barley seeds in flooded soil

Emergence and growth of barley was severely decreased by short periods (less than 24 hours) of pre-emergence waterlogging at 20°C. The extent of damage depended on a combination of duration of waterlogging, soil water potential and aggregate size. Potentials of less than—4kPa prevented loss of plants developing in aggregates of less than 2 mm diameter after a transitory period of waterlogging although some shoot and root damage occurred. By comparison seeds growing in soil consisting of aggregates greater than 2 mm in diameter were not damaged by transitory waterlogging even when drainage only occurred at−0.8kPa. The severity of damage increased with the period of waterlogging. A criterion obtained as the product of mean size grade and water potential gave a single value (−4NM⁻¹) below which emergence was satisfactory. Waterlogging halfway through germination gave more severe damage than near sowing date or near emergence.     

The effect of lime on phosphorus adsorption and barley growth in three acid soils

For three acid soils from Santa Catarina, Brazil, lime application and time of incubation with lime had little effect on the adsorption of added phosphorus. In two soils with high contents of exchangeable aluminium, solution P and isotopically exchangeable P were decreased by incubating with lime for 1 month: phosphorus was probably adsorbing on freshly precipitated aluminium hydrous oxides. In one soil with less exchangeable aluminium, P in solution was increased by liming. After 23 months lime increased solution and exchangeable P possibly due to crystallization of aluminium hydrous oxides reducing the number of sites for P adsorption. All these changes were however small. In a pot experiment, lime and phosphorus markedly increased barley shoot and root dry matter and P uptake. Although liming reduced P availability measured by solution P, isotopically exchangeable P and resin extractable P, it increased phosphorus uptake by reducing aluminium toxicity and promoting better root growth. The soil aluminium saturation was reduced by liming, but the concentration of aluminium in roots changed only slightly. The roots accumulated aluminium without apparently being damaged.     

Influence of various soil factors on the effects of ferulic acid on leaf expansion of cucumber seedlings

Summary Cucumber seedlings were grown in a Portsmouth soil-sand system to study how varying soil clay and organic matter content might modify cucumber seedling response to ferulic acid, a reported allelopathic agent. Leaf area expansion of cucumber seedlings, soil respiration, and soil solution concentrations of ferulic acid were monitored. Leaf area, mean absolute rates of leaf expansion, and shoot dry weight of cucumber seedlings were significantly reduced by ferulic acid concentrations ranging from 10 to 70 μg/g dry soil. Ferulic acid was applied every other day, since it rapidly disappeared from soil solution as a result of retention by soil particles, utilization by microbes and/or uptake by roots. The amount of ferulic acid retained (i.e., adsorbed, polymerized,etc.) by soil particles appeared to be secondary to microbial utilization and/or uptake by roots. Varying clay (5.3 to 9.8 g/cup) and organic matter (2.0 to 0.04g/cup) contents of the soil appeared to have little impact on the disappearance of ferulic acid from soil solution under “ideal” growth conditions for cucumber seedlings unless larger amounts of ferulic acid were added to the soil; in this case 200 μg/g. The addition of ferulic acid to the soil materials substantially increased the activity of the soil microbes. This latter conclusion is based on recovery of ferulic acid from soil solution and soil respiration measurements. Paper No. 10347 of the Journal Series of the North Carolina Agricultural Research Service, Raleigh, N C 27695-7601. The use of trade names in this publication does not imply endorsement by the North Carolina Agricultural Research Service of the product named, nor criticism of similar ones not mentioned.     

The influence of soil moisture and flooding on formation of VA-endo- and ectomycorrhizae in Populus and Salix

Native mixtures of extomycorrhizal fungi were found to infect Populus and Salix roots primarily in very moist but well drained soils in both the field and in controlled experiments (0 to –0.2 MPa), whereas native mixtures of VA-endomycorrhizal fungi infected roots over a much wider range of soil moisture (flooded to –3.4 MPa). Although a moisture gradient experiment showed endomycorrhizal formation was greater in moist soil than in very dry or flooded soils, this pattern was reversed in field transects along drainage gradients. Infection by VA-endomycorrhizal fungi in the field was the lowest where infection by ectomycorrhizal fungi was high, which suggests possible antagonism among the fungal symbionts. The narrow moisture range for ectomycorrhizal formation, and antagonism among endo- and ectomycorrhizal fungi, apparently combine to produce the mycorrhizal distributions found in nature.     

Effect of simulated forest fire on the availability of N and P in mediterranean soils

The effect of soil burning on N and P availability and on mineralization and nitrification rates of N in the burned mineral soil was studied by combustion of soils in the laboratory. At a fire temperature of 600°C, there was a complete volatilization of NH₄ and a significant increase of pH, from 7.6 in the unburned soil to 11.7 in the burned soil. Under such conditions ammonification and nitrification reactions were inhibited. Less available P was produced immediately after the fire at 600°C, as compared to P amount produced at 250°C. Burning the soils with plants caused a decrease in NH₄-N and (NO₂+NO₃)-N concentrations in the soil as well as a reduction in ammonification and nitrification rates. Combustion of soil with plants contributed additional available P to the burned soil. The existence of a non-burned soil under the burned one played an important role in triggering ammonification and nitrification reactions.     

Perspectives on measurement of denitrification in the field including recommended protocols for acetylene based methods

Of the biogeochemical processes, denitrification has perhaps been the most difficult to study in the field because of the inability to measure the product of the process. The last decade of research, however, has provided both acetylene and¹⁵N based methods as well as undisturbed soil core andin situ soil cover sampling approaches to implementing these methods. All of these methods, if used appropriately, give comparable results. Thus, we now have several methods, each with advantages for particular sites or objectives, that accurately measure denitrification in nature. Because of the general usefulness of the acetylene methods, updated protocols for the following three methods are given: gas-phase recirculation soil cores; static soil cores; and the denitrifying enzyme assay also known as the phase 1 assay. Despite the availability of these and other methods, denitrification budgets remain difficult to accurately establish in most environments because of the high spatial and temporal variability inherent in denitrification. Appropriate analysis of those data includes a distribution analysis of the data, and if highly skewed as is typically the case, the most accurate method to estimate the mean and the population variance is the UMVUE method (uniformly minimum variance unbiased estimator). Geostatistical methods have also been employed to improve spatial and temporal estimates of denitrification. These have occasionally been successful for spatial analysis but in the attempt described here for temporal analysis the approach was not useful.Discussions of the importance of denitrification have always focused on quantifying the process and whether particular measured quantities are judged to be a significant amount of nitrogen. A second line of evidence discussed here is the extant genetic record that results from natural selection. These analysis lead to the conclusion that strong selection for denitrification must currently be occurring, which implies that the process is of general significance in soils.