SAES-422 Multistate Research Activity Accomplishments Report

Sections

Basic Information
Additional Info

Status: Approved

Basic Information

Project No. and Title: NCERA148 : Migration and Dispersal of Agriculturally Important Biota (NCR-148)
Period Covered: 10/01/2007 to 09/01/2008
Date of Report: 10/17/2008
Annual Meeting Dates: 10/15/2008 to 10/17/2008

Blanco, Carlos, Carlos.Blanco@ars.usda.gov,USDA-ARS, Stoneville, MS; Byrne, David N., byrne@ag.Arizona.edu, University of Arizona; Colunga-Garcia, Manuel, colunga@msu.edu, Michigan State University; Ellis, Katie, kag298@psu.edu, Penn State University; Fleischer, Shelby, sjf4@psu.edu, Penn State University; Golod, Julie, golod@zedxinc.com, Penn State University; Holmes, Gerald, gerald_holmes@ncsu.edu, NCSU; Hutchison, William D., hutch002@umn.edu, University of Minnesota; Isard, Scott A., sai10@psu.edu, Penn State University; Magarey, Roger D., Roger.D.Magarey@aphis.usda.gov, USDA-ARS, NCSU; Main, Charlie, CE_MAIN@ncsu.edu, NCSU; Meagher, Robert L, rob.meagher@ars.usda.gov, USDA-ARS CMAVE; Meyer, Rick H.J., hmeyer@csrees.usda.gov, USDA, CSREES; Michel, Andrew P., michel.70@osu.edu, Ohio state Unitversity; Nagoshi, Rodney, Rodney.Nagoshi@ars.usda.gov, USDA-ARS; Nutter, Forrest W., fwn@iastate.edu, Iowa State University; Ravlin, Bill, koshar.3@osu.edu, Ohio state Unitversity; Russo, Joe, russo@zedxinc.com, ZedX; Sappington, Tom, Tom.Sappington@ars.usda.gov, USDA-ARS; Schmale III, David G., dschmale@vt.edu, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University; Spencer, Joe, spencer1@uiuc.edu, Illinois Natural History Survey; Taylor, S. Elwynn, setaylor@iastate.edu, Iowa State University; Westbrook, John K., John.Westbrook@ars.usda.gov, USDA-ARS

Brief Summary of Minutes of Annual Meeting

Thurs., 16 Oct. Opening comments The group agreed that the powerpoints would be placed on the PSU NCERA 148 site as pdf files. Roger will send the pdfs to Annalisa Ariatti . Participants who do not want their powerpoints to be displayed or changed should contact Annalisa or send her a new pdf. No registration fee will be charged for this years meeting. Food and beverages are courtesy of the NCSU center for IPM. John Westcott is thanked for providing the funding for the award and David Byrne for arranging the award. Administrative Advisors report (Rick Meyer and Bill Ravlin) Ric Meyer gave the group a briefing on the change from CSREES to the National Institute for Food and Agriculture. The director of the agency will be a political appointee. There will be some changes to the NRI program, it will now be called the Agricultural Food Research Initiative. There are some changes to eligibility and now projects may run up to 10 years. Bill indicated that the group should collaborate to seek funding where possible. Examples were given of successful group collaborations. Draft of project re-write (John Westbrook) A draft of the project renewal has been circulated to the group. Assignment of ad hoc nomination committees for officer (Hutchinson, Westbrook), meeting site (Schmale, Fleischer) and awards (Byrne, Isard). Keynote presentation Gerald Holmes (NC): Forecasting long-distance movement of plant diseases: the case for cucurbit downy mildew. Gerald is the recipient of funding from ipmPIPE. Gerald described the development of the cucurbit downy mildew PIPE and the basic biological research such as spore survival. Gerald is exploring new techniques such as email and text alerts to speed the message to stakeholders. State reports: Theme 1 Pathogens PA (Isard): Soybean and wheat stem rusts: progress toward forecasting long-distance aerial movement. Isard has two grants for wheat rust (UG 99) modeling critical issues ($90K) and NRI ($999K). The research techniques integrate aerobiological modeling with PCR diagnostics from samples from the National Atmospheric Dispersion network. VA (Schmale): Tracking the movement of the potato late blight pathogen, Phytophthora infestans, in the lower atmosphere. Schmale described his NRI PB project to examine the aerobiology of P. infestans through the use of unmanned aerial vehicles and other techniques. State reports: Theme 2 Arthropods MI (Colunga) Enhancing the Early Detection of Human-Mediated Invasions. Colunga described his NRI program for predicting hot zones for introduction of invasive pests. The techniques uses urbanicity, crop and trade data to predict the locations of the best locations for pest surveillance. AZ (Byrne) Estimating flight performance by Bemisia tabaci based on laboratory and field populations. Examining insects from field crops provide the truest measures of actual migratory behavior. Estimates derived based on observations made of colonized insects provide useful starting points, but are limited in their usefulness. TX (Sappington): Multidisciplinary Fingerprints for Forensic Reconstruction of a Boll Weevil Reinvasion. An interdisciplinary team used atmospheric trajectories, genetic fingerprinting and pollen analysis to identify the most likely source of a boll weevil re-infestation in the Southern Rolling Plains of Texas during 2007. PA (Fleischer): Impact of greenhouse gas emission scenarios on voltinism of grape berry moth. Genetic analysis was used to look at the flight performance of noctuid moths. Sate reports: Theme 3 Population Genetics FL (Meagher): Capture of noctuid moths in Florida with floral compounds. The efficacy of binary combinations of floral compounds was tested as attractants. Can these compounds be used for trapping females in migration research? More studies will follow with possible expansion to Mississippi. FL (Nagoshi): Migration and population genetics of fall armyworm. Genetic analysis has revealed two distinct migration pathways and populations. The most important one for central US is from Brazil into the south-central US with a minor pathway from Puerto Rico into Florida. There are two distinct strains, one infesting corn and another infesting turf. IA (Miller & Sappington): Using genetic markers to understand the role of dispersal in the ongoing range expansion of the western bean cutworm. MS (Blanco): Genetic analysis of H. zea and H. virescens populations obtained from different geographies and hosts in Mexico and the U.S. Genetic studies show the significance of local populations. This finding has implications for the development of insecticide resistance. OH (Michel): Testing molecular markers in the soybean aphid for population differentiation. Genetic studies were used to test hypothesis about migration patterns in North America and from potential off-shore locations. IL (Spencer): Use of transgenic corn tissue as a marker to determine the movement of western corn rootworm from refuges to transgenic corn. Males can travel 10s of rows to mate but the surprising results are that they are often mating with older females also from refuges. Spencer is also studying the natural movement of Japanese beetles from rural areas to urban areas by looking for round-up ready tissue in the beetles. State reports: Theme 4 Computer Information Systems and Aerobiological Data PA/NC (Russo/Magarey): A cyberinfrastructure for aerobiological modeling. An information architecture design that uses a generic architecture to share development costs. A cyberinfrastructure could potentially be used to share data and model output within NCERA-148, with stakeholders and with other research groups. KS (Margosian): A GIS based spread model for exotic pests. The model uses a cost of movement algorithm which is based on host availability. Host data was obtained from NASS. The model has potential application for emergency response planning. Users who wish to try the model can go to http://129.130.86.197/spreadmodel/ Committee elections and selections Official selection Bill Hutchinson nominated, and John Westbrook seconded, Andy Michel as a candidate for Secretary-Treasurer. The vote was carried by acclamation. Site selection Shelby Fleischer and David Schmale recommended Virginia Tech as the site for the 2009 NCERA-148 meeting. There is a 45-minute commute from the airport. The first two weeks of October would be the best option to avoid football schedule. Avoid Columbus Day (federal holiday). Awards Charlie Main received the award 2008 NCERA 148 Recognition award. The award is given in recognition of DR Charles E. Main North Carolina State University, to the mission of NCERA 148. His development of a dispersal model for tobacco blue mold, Personospora tabacina serves as a prime example of combining basic and applied science. Without a thorough understanding of the biology of this plant pathogen such a program would not be possible. Charlies effort provided growers along the eastern seaboard a valuable tool with which to manage this pest. We also thank Charlie for his kind nature and wit. Discussion of emerging challenges and prospective collaborations for aerobiological research and extension Lepidopteran Aerobiology Modeling System (LAMS) Workshop: Status report and plans MN (Hutchinson): The Zea Map site has moth flight updates, migration forecasts, educational material. Future of LAMS should it continue to exist as a working group? Industry provides substantial funding. These funds have been used to purchase traps ($30,000 from one contributor). Industry also makes in kind funding. Two grant proposals were ranked high but not funded. Sustainably was questioned. Perhaps grant should focus on research, and drop inclusion of spatio-temporal database, assuming that will emerge from somewhere else. As in Precision Ag, technology is not scale-neutral: Where such a database would emerge from would influence data quality and geographic relevance.. The cost of establishing, maintaining, and providing quality data from a site was estimated at $1700 over two years. This represents $2 million in matching contribution on the part of cooperators. Maintaining the structure will help the group apply for funding. Is there a chance of a USDA program to support cyberinfrastructure? Rick Meyer does not think so. Precision agriculture is rapidly maturing and some chemical companies will be giving out tools for monitoring. What is the role of Extension and researchers when federal funding is stagnant and decline, and industry is stepping in to provide more of the infrastructure. Shelby Fleischer is considering a change in leadership for the LAMS workshop. Resubmission to specialty crops will be best because it allowed inclusion of research objectives. Discussion of emerging challenges and prospective collaborations for aerobiological research and extension Interacting with precision agriculture and the challenges it brings could be part of the future for NCERA 148. Precision agriculture includes pest monitoring. Precision agriculture is moving towards total farm management. Crop consultants are leading the charge. Variable rate application is now old hat but more farm level management, including pest management is coming. One proposal is to approach industry to establish and maintain spatiotemporal databases for all pests. In return for the data, researchers will provide technical information to industry (and growers!) but the funding mechanism was providing this support was undefined, and it would probably not be research, but Extension, that would be able to best supply relevant information. Data from industry will be supplied at the county level to protect identity, which represents a decrease in data resolution from current Extension programs. The national data would not be shared with the public, instead interpretations would be shared which is what the public wants and currently obtains from Extension: the mechanism for funding Extension workings in such a plan was undefined. Researchers and Extension staff can help scale up the data. Extension can provide a framework for setting up the network. Has the group come up with a list of what pests are of priority? This could be used as a way to help set funding priorities. This could be examined through previous reports. It may also be interesting to see how these priorities match up with industries. We also need to consider emerging and exotic pests. The National Phenology Network is a good example of a project being designed correctly with handoffs to cooperators. The challenge is to develop an infrastructure/protocol that supports data sharing with industry. Maintaining extension is problematic due to shrinking federal and state budgets and increased pressure by Extension workers to operate from competitive funds for both operations and salaries. If industry creates PIPE-like structures, should Extension work in this area, and under what funding mechanism? Graduate student presentations Allison Leidner, NCSU. Habitat fragmentation and dispersal of the Crystal Skipper moth. Genetic fingerprinting and mark recapture studies were used to study the influence of habitat fragmentation on a crystal butterfly associated with coastal dunes. The results showed that natural features such as forest and water were important barriers to movement as well as urban areas. Katie Ellis Penn State University Effects of wind direction and crop maturity on inter and intra-field dispersal of European corn borer. The objective was to characterize local dispersal (directional and distance from release). To confirm plant maturity preferences and to look at influence of plot mosaic on oviposition in individual plots Closing business