Do wildflower strips enhance pest control in organic cabbage?

Within this project we assess whether wildflower strips and companion plants increase the control of cabbage pests Plutella xylostella L. (Lepidoptera: Plutellidae), Mamestra brassicae L. (Lepidoptera: Noctuidae) and Pieris rapae L. (Lepidoptera: Pieridae) by (1) naturally occurring parasitoids and predators and (2) mass‐releasedn Trichogramma brassciae (Bezdenko) (Hymenoptera: Trichogrammatidae) parasitoids. Two organic cabbage fields were used for this study: adjacent to each field a wildflower strip was sown and companion plants (Centaurea cyanus L. (Asteraceae)) intermixed within the crop. Within each field ~15,000 M. brassicae eggs were placed out to determine the parasitism rates by mass‐released T. brassicae and to assess the levels of egg predation. Over 1,000 lepidopteran larvae were collected and screened for hymenopteran and tachinid parasitoid DNA using a multiplex PCR assay. Invertebrate generalist predators (n=1,063) were collected for DNA‐based gut content analysis. The wildflower strip had a significant positive effect on M. brassicae egg parasitism rates as rates increased 5‐fold in the vicinity to the strip. Moreover, companion plants enhanced invertebrate predation on M. brassicae eggs. Both, the release of T. brassicae and the use of companion plants, however, did not significantly increase egg parasitism rates. The infestation of plants by caterpillars increased with distance to the wildflower strip and there was a trend of decreasing larval parasitism rates with distance to the strip. Currently the invertebrate predators are being molecularly analysed to assess predation on unparasitized and parasitized lepidopteran pests

Scaling and energy transfer in rotating turbulence

The inertial-range properties of quasi-stationary hydrodynamic turbulence under solid-body rotation are studied via high-resolution direct numerical simulations. For strong rotation the nonlinear energy cascade exhibits depletion and a pronounced anisotropy with the energy flux proceeding mainly perpendicularly to the rotation axis. This corresponds to a transition towards a quasi-two-dimensional flow similar to a linear Taylor-Proudman state. In contrast to the energy spectrum along the rotation axis which does not scale self-similarly, the perpendicular spectrum displays an inertial range with $k^{-2}_\perp$-behavior. A new phenomenology gives a rationale for the observations. The scaling exponents $\zeta_p$ of structure functions up to order $p=8$ measured perpendicular to the rotation axis indicate reduced intermittency with increasing rotation rate. The proposed phenomenology is consistent with the inferred asymptotic non-intermittent behavior $\zeta_p=p/2$.Comment: to be published in Europhysics Letters (www.epletters.net), minor changes to match version in prin

Geometrical statistics of the vorticity vector and the strain rate tensor in rotating turbulence

We report results on the geometrical statistics of the vorticity vector obtained from experiments in electromagnetically forced rotating turbulence. A range of rotation rates $\Omega$ is considered, from non-rotating to rapidly rotating turbulence with a maximum background rotation rate of $\Omega=5$ rad/s (with Rossby number much smaller than unity). Typically, in our experiments ${\rm{Re}}_{\lambda}\approx 100$. The measurement volume is located in the centre of the fluid container above the bottom boundary layer, where the turbulent flow can be considered locally statistically isotropic and horizontally homogeneous for the non-rotating case, see van Bokhoven et al., Phys. Fluids 21, 096601 (2009). Based on the full set of velocity derivatives, measured in a Lagrangian way by 3D Particle Tracking Velocimetry, we have been able to quantify statistically the effect of system rotation on several flow properties. The experimental results show how the turbulence evolves from almost isotropic 3D turbulence ($\Omega\lesssim 0.2$ rad/s) to quasi-2D turbulence ($\Omega\approx 5.0$ rad/s) and how this is reflected by several statistical quantities. In particular, we have studied the orientation of the vorticity vector with respect to the three eigenvectors of the local strain rate tensor and with respect to the vortex stretching vector. Additionally, we have quantified the role of system rotation on the self-amplification terms of the enstrophy and strain rate equations and the direct contribution of the background rotation on these evolution equations. The main effect is the strong reduction of extreme events and related (strong) reduction of the skewness of PDFs of several quantities such as, for example, the intermediate eigenvalue of the strain rate tensor and the enstrophy self-amplification term.Comment: 17 pages, 6 figures, 3 table

Anarcho-Environmentalists: Ascetics of Late Modernity

This article explores experiences of environmental activism from the viewpoint of members of a radical environment group. It is based on data collected during eight months of participant observation and through semistructured interviews with ten core members and two ex-members. Working on personal feelings, attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors (self-work) was central to the strategy for social change employed by this group. Drawing on Weber's sociology of religion, this article explores the way the high expectation the activists had of themselves matched Weber's typification of the rationally active ascetic. It is argued that asceticism is an enduring element of Western culture that takes different forms in response to historical conditions. In this case, we see a form of secular asceticism that responds to the conditions of late modernity

On truth unpersistence: At the crossroads of epistemic modality and discourse

International audienceWe propose a semantic analysis of the particles afinal (European Portuguese) and alla fine (Italian) in terms of the notion of truth unpersistence, which combines both epistemic modality and constraints on discourse structure. We argue that the felicitous use of these modal particles requires that the truth of a proposition p* fail to persist through a temporal succession of epistemic states, where p* is incompatible with the proposition modified by afinal/alla fine, and that the interlocutors share knowledge of a previous epistemic attitude toward p*. We analyze two main cases, that of plan-related propositions and that of propositions without plans. We also discuss the connections between truth unpersistence and evidentiality

Two analogy strategies: The cases of mind metaphors and introspection

Analogical reasoning is often employed in problem-solving and metaphor interpretation. This paper submits that, as a default, analogical reasoning addressing these different tasks employs different mapping strategies: In problem-solving, it employs analogy-maximising strategies (like structure mapping, Gentner & Markman 1997); in metaphor interpretation, analogy-minimising strategies (like ATT-Meta, Barnden 2015). The two strategies interact in analogical reasoning with conceptual metaphors. This interaction leads to predictable fallacies. The paper supports these hypotheses through case-studies on ‘mind’-metaphors from ordinary discourse, and abstract problem-solving in the philosophy of mind, respectively: It shows that (1) default metaphorical interpretations for vision- and space-cognition metaphors can be derived with a variant of the analogy-minimising ATT-Meta approach, (2) philosophically influential introspective conceptions of the mind can be derived with conceptual metaphors only through an analogy-maximising strategy, and (3) the interaction of these strategies leads to hitherto unrecognised fallacies in analogical reasoning with metaphors. This yields a debunking explanation of introspective conceptions

Reconstruction of muon number of air showers with the surface detector of the Pierre Auger Observatory using neural networks

To understand the physics of cosmic rays at the highest energies, it is mandatory to have an accurate knowledge of their mass composition. Since the mass of the primary particles cannot be measured directly, we have to rely on the analysis of mass-sensitive observables to gain insights into this composition. A promising observable for this purpose is the number of muons at the ground relative to that of an air shower induced by a proton primary of the same energy and inclination angle, commonly referred to as the relative muon number Rµ. Due to the complexity of shower footprints, the extraction of Rµ from measurements is a challenging task and intractable to solve using analytic approaches. We, therefore, reconstruct Rµ by exploiting the spatial and temporal information of the signals induced by shower particles using neural networks. Using this data-driven approach permits us to tackle this task without the need of modeling the underlying physics and, simultaneously, gives us insights into the feasibility of such an approach. In this contribution, we summarize the progress of the deep-learning-based approach to estimate Rµ using simulated surface detector data of the Pierre Auger Observatory. Instead of using single architecture, we present different network designs verifying that they reach similar results. Moreover, we demonstrate the potential for estimating Rµ using the scintillator surface detector of the AugerPrime upgrade

Editorial

This issue of the Bulletin of Entomological Research is a little different, in that it includes eight papers from a conference held last year at the University of Innsbruck, Austria, entitled ‘Molecular approaches to study trophic interactions: current progress and future directions’. Details of the meeting can still be found at www.mti-symposium.at. The meeting was organised to bring together researchers in the growing fields of molecular analysis of predation and parasitism. The aim was to discuss and synthesize the latest progress in these fields, to discuss techniques, to identify promising avenues for future research and to stimulate cooperation and collaboration. A major objective was also to attract those new to, or interested in, using these approaches and to provide a workshop that would help them get started and to understand the advantages and limitations of molecular approaches. The meeting was deliberately cross-discipline, bringing together people working on vertebrates and invertebrates, terrestrial and aquatic systems, but all with a common interest in trophic relationships and their study using molecular approaches. There were over 70 researchers and students from 15 countries at this highly diverse, three-day conference. Four sessions were held and introduced by keynote speakers, each an international leader in his field: Simon Jarman (Australian Antarctic Division, Australia) introduced the session on predation in aquatic systems, and Andrew King (Cardiff University, UK) provided us with an overview on predation in terrestrial systems. The session on the analysis of blood meals was opened by Steven Torr (University of Greenwich, UK), while Matt Greenstone (USDA, USA) provided (remotely) a keynote address on molecular approaches to study endoparasitism. The keynote presentations were followed by an array of highly interesting talks, complemented by posters. This special issue of Bulletin of Entomological Research, therefore, includes papers form this techniques-based meeting that are by no means all entomological. Our justification for this diversion from our usual editorial policies is that the molecular approaches used are widely applicable across taxonomic divisions. Thus, a technique developed to detect dietary components in the guts of krill might be equally useful to someone working on predation by carabid beetles or ladybirds. We make no apologies, therefore, for including papers on the gut microflora of lumbricid earthworms and the diets of rock lobsters alongside more familiar entomological studies on predation and parasitism. These papers clearly demonstrate that molecular analyses are providing us with exciting new ways to study trophic relationships within food webs in a range of aquatic and terrestrial ecosystems. We would like to thank all participants at the Symposium who made this conference such a rewarding and productive meeting, but especially those who have contributed to this special edition. We look forward to regular future symposia in this fast-moving field

Some electrophysiologic signs of impairment of verbal prediction in schizophrenia (Russian)

In a study of speech prediction in schizophrenic patients the authors registered the EEG with the use of a computer, and the coefficients of signal correlation. It was established that after the perception of the second word in 3 member phrases with an easily predictable ending, in normal subjects there was a significant increase in the number of synchronously oscillating cortical points, particularly in the frontal area. In schizophrenic patients it was possible to observe a reverse, more diffuse cortical activation, involving the lower sincipital areas. The amplitude of the skin galvanic reaction in normal subjects progressively declined during the perception of phrases which could be anticipated and increased markedly upon the perception of the expected word. This was not observed in schizophrenia. It may be inferred that in schizophrenia it is not so much the mechanism of speech preception and prediction that is disturbed but rather the mechanism of regulating these processes which are controlled by the frontal areas of the brain

The resilience of weed seedbank regulation by carabid beetles, at continental scales, to alternative prey

Carabids are generalist predators that contribute to the agricultural ecosystem service of seedbank regulation via weed seed predation. To facilitate adoption of this ecosystem services by farmers, knowledge of weed seed predation and the resilience of seedbank regulation with co-varying availability of alternative prey is crucial. Using assessments of the seedbank and predation on seed cards in 57 cereal fields across Europe, we demonstrate a regulatory effect on the soil seedbank, at a continental scale, by groups formed of omnivore, seed-eating (granivore+omnivore) and all species of carabids just prior to the crop-harvest. Regulation was associated with a positive relationship between the activity-density of carabids and seed predation, as measured on seed cards. We found that per capita seed consumption on the cards co-varied negatively with the biomass of alternative prey, i.e. Aphididae, Collembola and total alternative prey biomass. Our results underline the importance of weed seedbank regulation by carabids, across geographically significant scales, and indicate that the effectiveness of this biocontrol may depend on the availability of alternative prey that disrupt the weed seed predation