Systematics and biology of the iconic Australian scribbly gum moths Ogmograptis Meyrick (Lepidoptera: Bucculatricidae) and their unique insect-plant interaction

The larvae of particular Ogmograptis spp. produce distinctive scribbles on some smooth-barked Eucalyptus spp. which are a common feature on many ornamental and forest trees in Australia. However, although they are conspicuous in the environment the systematics and biology of the genus has been poorly studied. This has been addressed through detailed field and laboratory studies of their biology of three species (O. racemosa Horak sp. nov., O. fraxinoides Horak sp. nov., O. scribula Meyrick), in conjunction with a comprehensive taxonomic revision support by a molecular phylogeny utilising the mitochondrial Cox1 and nuclear 18S genes. In brief, eggs are laid in bark depressions and the first instar larvae bore into the bark to the level where the future cork cambium forms (the phellegen). Early instar larvae bore wide, arcing tracks in this layer before forming a tighter zig-zag shaped pattern. The second last instar turns and bores either closely parallel to the initial mine or doubles its width, along the zig-zag shaped mine. The final instar possesses legs and a spinneret (unlike the earlier instars) and feeds exclusively on callus tissue which forms within the zig-zag shaped mine formed by the previous instar, before emerging from the bark to pupate at the base of the tree. The scars of mines them become visible scribble following the shedding of bark. Sequence data confirm the placement of Ogmograptis within the Bucculatricidae, suggest that the larvae responsible for the ‘ghost scribbles’ (unpigmented, raised scars found on smooth-barked eucalypts) are members of the genus Tritymba, and support the morphology-based species groups proposed for Ogmograptis. The formerly monotypic genus Ogmograptis Meyrick is revised and divided into three species groups. Eleven new species are described: Ogmograptis fraxinoides Horak sp. nov., Ogmograptis racemosa Horak sp. nov. and Ogmograptis pilularis Horak sp. nov. forming the scribula group with Ogmograptis scribula Meyrick; Ogmograptis maxdayi Horak sp. nov., Ogmograptis barloworum Horak sp. nov., Ogmograptis paucidentatus Horak sp. nov., Ogmograptis rodens Horak sp. nov., Ogmograptis bignathifer Horak sp. nov. and Ogmograptis inornatus Horak sp. nov. as the maxdayi group; Ogmograptis bipunctatus Horak sp. nov., Ogmograptis pulcher Horak sp. nov., Ogmograptis triradiata (Turner) comb. nov. and Ogmograptis centrospila (Turner) comb. nov. as the triradiata group. Ogmograptis notosema (Meyrick) cannot be assigned to a species group as the holotype has not been located. Three unique synapomorphies, all derived from immatures, redefine the family Bucculatricidae, uniting Ogmograptis, Tritymba Meyrick (both Australian) and Leucoedemia Scoble & Scholtz (African) with Bucculatrix Zeller, which is the sister group of the southern hemisphere genera. The systematic history of Ogmograptis and the Bucculatricidae is discussed.

Functional monoecy due to delayed anther dehiscence : a novel mechanism in pseuduvaria mulgraveana (annonaceae)

Unlike most genera in the early-divergent angiosperm family Annonaceae, Pseuduvaria exhibits a diversity of floral sex expression. Most species are structurally andromonoecious (or possibly androdioecious), although the hermaphroditic flowers have been inferred to be functionally pistillate, with sterile staminodes. Pseuduvaria presents an ideal model for investigating the evolution of floral sex in early-divergent angiosperms, although detailed empirical studies are currently lacking. The phenology and pollination ecology of the Australian endemic species Pseuduvaria mulgraveana are studied in detail, including evaluations of floral scent chemistry, pollen viability, and floral visitors. Results showed that the flowers are pollinated by small diurnal nitidulid beetles and are protogynous. Pollen from both hermaphroditic and staminate flowers are shown to be equally viable. The structurally hermaphroditic flowers are nevertheless functionally pistillate as anther dehiscence is delayed until after petal abscission and hence after the departure of pollinators. This mechanism to achieve functional unisexuality of flowers has not previously been reported in angiosperms. It is known that protogyny is widespread amongst early-divergent angiosperms, including the Annonaceae, and is effective in preventing autogamy. Delayed anther dehiscence represents a further elaboration of this, and is effective in preventing geitonogamy since very few sexually mature flowers occur simultaneously in an individual. We highlight the necessity for field-based empirical interpretations of functional floral sex expression prior to evaluations of evolutionary processes.

Joseph Maiden and the national and transnational circulation of Wattle Acacia spp

During the nineteenth century and in the early years of the twentieth century wattle was circulated by botanists, botanical institutions, interested individuals, commercial seedsmen and government authorities. Wattle bark was used in the production of leather and was the subject of debate regarding its commercial development and conservation in Australia. It was also trialled in many other locations including America, New Zealand, Hawaii and Russia. In the process, South Africa became a major producer of wattle bark for a global market. At the same time wattle was also promoted as a symbol of Australian nationalism. This paper considers this movement of wattles, wattle material and wattle information by examining the career of one active agent in these botanical transfers: Joseph Maiden. In doing so it demonstrates that these seemingly different uses of the wattle overlap transnational and national spheres.

The role of enoyl reductase genes in phloridzin biosynthesis in apple

Phloridzin is the predominant polyphenol in apple (Malus× domestica Borkh.) where it accumulates to high concentrations in many tissues including the leaves, bark, roots and fruit. Despite its relative abundance in apple the biosynthesis of phloridzin and other related dihydrochalcones remains only partially understood. The key unidentified enzyme in phloridzin biosynthesis is a putative carbon double bond reductase which is thought to act on p-coumaroyl-CoA to produce the dihydro p-coumaroyl-CoA precursor. A functional screen of six apple enoyl reductase-like (ENRL) genes was carried out using transient infiltration into tobacco and gene silencing by RNA interference (RNAi) in order to determine carbon double bond reductase activity and contribution to foliar phloridzin concentrations. The ENRL-3 gene caused a significant increase in phloridzin concentration when infiltrated into tobacco leaves whilst a second protein ENRL-5, with over 98% amino acid sequence similarity to ENRL-3, showed p-coumaroyl-CoA reductase activity in enzyme assays. Finally, an RNAi study showed that reducing the transcript levels of ENRL-3 in transgenic 'Royal Gala' led to a 66% decrease in the concentration of dihydrochalcones in the leaves in the one available silenced line. Overall these results suggest that ENRL-3, and its close homolog ENRL-5, may contribute to the biosynthesis of phloridzin in apple.

Towards a phylogeny of the Tenebrionoidea (Coleoptera)

The phylogenetic relationships of the beetle superfamily Tenebrionoidea are investigated using the most comprehensive genetic data set compiled to date. With ∼34,000 described species in approximately 1250 genera and 28 families, Tenebrionoidea represent one of the most diverse and species-rich superfamilies of beetles. The interfamilial relationships of the Tenebrionoidea are poorly known; previous morphological and molecular phylogenies recovered few well-supported and often conflicting relationships between families. Here we present a molecular phylogeny of Tenebrionoidea based on genes commonly used to resolve family and superfamily-level phylogenies of beetles (18S, 28S, 16S, 12S, tRNA Val and COI). The alignment spanned over 6.5 KB of DNA sequence and over 300 tenebrionoid genera from 24 of the 28 families were sampled. Maximum Likelihood and Bayesian analysis could not resolve deeper level divergences within the superfamily and very few relationships between families were supported. Increasing gene coverage in the alignment by removing taxa with missing data did not improve clade support but when rogue taxa were removed increased resolution was recovered. Investigation of signal strength suggested conflicting phylogenetic signal was present in the standard genes used for beetle phylogenetics, even when rogue taxa were removed. Our study of Tenebrionoidea highlights that even with relatively comprehensive taxon sampling within a lineage, this standard set of genes is unable to resolve relationships within this superfamily.

Echolocation calls, wing shape, diet and phylogenetic diagnosis of the endemic Chinese bat Myotis pequinius

We describe the echolocation calls, flight morphology and diet of the endemic Chinese bat Myotis pequinius Thomas, 1908. Orientation calls are broadband, and reach low terminal frequencies. Diet comprised 80% beetles by volume. Wing shape and call design suggest that the bats fly in cluttered habitats, and the possession of moderately long ears and the dietary composition imply they forage at least sometimes by gleaning. Myotis pequinius resembles a larger Oriental version of the western Palaearctic species M. nattereri. Phylogenetic analysis based on sequences of the cytochrome b gene of mitochondrial DNA (1,140 base pairs) from a range of Palaearctic Myotis species confirmed that M. pequinius is close to the nattereri group, and is a sister-species to the eastern Palaearctic M. bombinus. One bat sequenced from China could not be identified from available species descriptions. It was smaller than M. pequinius, and also differed from it in sequence divergence by 6.7%, suggesting the existence of additional, cryptic taxonomic diversity in this group. Our phylogenetic analysis also supports the recognition of M. schaubi as a species distinct from M. nattereri in Transcaucasia and south-western Asia. Myotis nattereri tschuliensis is more closely related to M. schaubi than to M. nattereri, and is best considered either as a subspecies of M. schaubi, or possibly as a distinct species.

'I wonder what you know...': Teachers designing requests for factual information

The early years are significant in optimising children’s educational, emotional and social outcomes and have become a major international policy priority. Within Australia, policy levers have prioritised early childhood education, with a focus on program quality, as it is associated with lifelong success. Longitudinal studies have found that high quality teacher-child interactions are an essential element of high quality programs, and teacher questioning is one aspect of teacher-child interactions that has been attributed to affecting the quality of education, linking open ended questioning to higher cognitive achievement. Teachers, however, overwhelmingly ask more closed than open questions. In the classroom, like everyday interaction, questions in interaction require answers. They are used to request, offer, repair, challenge, seek agreement (Curl & Drew, 2008; Enfield, Stivers, & Levinson, 2010; Hayano, 2013; Schegloff, 2007). Teachers use questions to set agendas and manage lessons (McHoul, 1978; Mehan, 1979; Sacks, 1995), and to gauge students’ knowledge and understanding (Lerner, 1995; McHoul, 1978; Mehan, 1979). Drawing on data from the Australian Research Council project Interacting with Knowledge: Interacting with people: Web searching in early childhood, this paper focuses on an extended sequence of talk between a teacher with two students aged between 3.5 and 5 years in a preschool classroom. The episode, drawn from a corpus of over 200 hours of video recorded data, captures how the teacher and children undertake an online search for images of lady beetles and hairy caterpillars on the Web. Ethnomethodological and conversation analysis approaches examine how the teacher asks questions, which call on the children to display their factual knowledge about the search topic. The fine grained analysis shows how teachers design their interactions to prompt children’s displays of factual knowledge, and how the design of factual questions affect a student’s response in terms of what and how they respond. In focussing on how the teacher designs factual questions and how children respond to these questions it shows that question design can close down a student’s reply; or elicit a range of answers, from one word to extended more detailed responses. Understanding how the design of teachers’ questions can influence students’ responses has pedagogic implications and may support educators to make intentional decisions regarding their own questioning techniques.

Interference from object part relations in spoken word production: Behavioural and fMRI evidence

Objects presented in categorically related contexts are typically named slower than objects presented in unrelated contexts, a phenomenon termed semantic interference. However, not all semantic relationships induce interference. In the present study, we investigated the influence of object part-relations in the blocked cyclic naming paradigm. In Experiment 1 we established that an object's parts do induce a semantic interference effect when named in context compared to unrelated parts (e.g., leaf, root, nut, bark; for tree). In Experiment 2) we replicated the effect during perfusion functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to identify the cerebral regions involved. The interference effect was associated with significant perfusion signal increases in the hippocampal formation and decreases in the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex. We failed to observe significant perfusion signal changes in the left lateral temporal lobe, a region that shows reliable activity for interference effects induced by categorical relations in the same paradigm and is proposed to mediate lexical-semantic processing. We interpret these results as supporting recent explanations of semantic interference in blocked cyclic naming that implicate working memory mechanisms. However, given the failure to observe significant perfusion signal changes in the left temporal lobe, the results provide only partial support for accounts that assume semantic interference in this paradigm arises solely due to lexical-level processes.

Two linear beetle-type scanning tunneling microscopes

Two beetle-type scanning tunneling microscopes are described. Both designs have the thermal stability of the Besocke beetle and the simplicity of the Wilms beetle. Moreover, sample holders were designed that also allow both semiconductor wafers and metal single crystals to be studied. The coarse approach is a linear motion of the beetle towards the sample using inertial slip–stick motion. Ten wires are required to control the position of the beetle and scanner and measure the tunneling current. The two beetles were built with different sized piezolegs, and the vibrational properties of both beetles were studied in detail. It was found, in agreement with previous work, that the beetle bending mode is the lowest principal eigenmode. However, in contrast to previous vibrational studies of beetle-type scanning tunneling microscopes, we found that the beetles did not have the “rattling” modes that are thought to arise from the beetle sliding or rocking between surface asperities on the raceway. The mass of our beetles is 3–4 times larger than the mass of beetles where rattling modes have been observed. We conjecture that the mass of our beetles is above a “critical beetle mass.” This is defined to be the beetle mass that attenuates the rattling modes by elastically deforming the contact region to the extent that the rattling modes cannot be identified as distinct modes in cross-coupling measurements.

Rattling modes and the intrinsic vibrational spectrum of beetle-type scanning tunneling microscopes

It is known that the vibrational spectra of beetle-type scanning tunneling microscopes with a total mass of ≈3–4 g contain extrinsic ‘rattling’ modes in the frequency range extending from 500 to 1700 Hz that interfere with image acquisition. These modes lie below the lowest calculated eigenfrequency of the beetle and it has been suggested that they arise from the inertial sliding of the beetle between surface asperities on the raceway. In this paper we describe some cross-coupling measurements that were performed on three home-built beetle-type STMs of two different designs. We provide evidence that suggests that for beetles with total masses of 12–15 g all the modes in the rattling range are intrinsic. This provides additional support for the notion that the vibrational properties of beetle-type scanning tunneling microscopes can be improved by increasing the contact pressure between the feet of the beetle and the raceway.

from "The Roving Party"

They walked down through a dry creek bed lined with swamp gums grown so close together they appeared as one living whole. The men passed around these trees in single file, among sun shafts which pierced the canopy but threw no light upon their faces nor warmed their bones. In the gloom the air was thick with flies and the mushrooms grew like the sightless larvae of some queer and unnamed vermin. Before long they found themselves among a stand of trees which had been stripped of their bark for windbreaks. The naked trunks were carved over with bisected circles, detailings of the moon and sun, images of snakes and roo. The Parramatta men gazed at the finely wrought icons but John Batman found more to hold his attention. Pressed onto the flesh of the tree was a bloody handprint. Batman removed his hat and crouched to examine the ground and Black Bill joined him. One injured man had passed this way...

Prey of the silver-headed antechinus (Antechinus argentus), a new species of Australian dasyurid marsupial

The silver-headed antechinus (Antechinus argentus) is one of Australia’s most recently described mammals, and the single known population at Kroombit Tops in south-east Queensland is threatened. Nothing is known of the species’ ecology, so during 2014 we collected faecal pellets each month (March–September) from a population at the type locality to gather baseline data on diet composition. A total of 38 faecal pellets were collected from 12 individuals (eight females, four males) and microscopic analysis of pellets identified seven invertebrate orders, with 70% combined mean composition of beetles (Coleoptera: 38%) and cockroaches (Blattodea: 32%). Other orders that featured as prey were ants, crickets/grasshoppers, butterflies/moths, spiders, and true bugs. Given that faecal pellets could only be collected from a single habitat type (Eucalyptus montivaga high-altitude open forest) and location, this is best described as a generalist insectivorous diet that is characteristic of other previously studied congeners.

Assessment of crop insect damage using unmanned aerial systems: A machine learning approach

Agricultural pests are responsible for millions of dollars in crop losses and management costs every year. In order to implement optimal site-specific treatments and reduce control costs, new methods to accurately monitor and assess pest damage need to be investigated. In this paper we explore the combination of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV), remote sensing and machine learning techniques as a promising technology to address this challenge. The deployment of UAVs as a sensor platform is a rapidly growing field of study for biosecurity and precision agriculture applications. In this experiment, a data collection campaign is performed over a sorghum crop severely damaged by white grubs (Coleoptera: Scarabaeidae). The larvae of these scarab beetles feed on the roots of plants, which in turn impairs root exploration of the soil profile. In the field, crop health status could be classified according to three levels: bare soil where plants were decimated, transition zones of reduced plant density and healthy canopy areas. In this study, we describe the UAV platform deployed to collect high-resolution RGB imagery as well as the image processing pipeline implemented to create an orthoimage. An unsupervised machine learning approach is formulated in order to create a meaningful partition of the image into each of the crop levels. The aim of the approach is to simplify the image analysis step by minimizing user input requirements and avoiding the manual data labeling necessary in supervised learning approaches. The implemented algorithm is based on the K-means clustering algorithm. In order to control high-frequency components present in the feature space, a neighbourhood-oriented parameter is introduced by applying Gaussian convolution kernels prior to K-means. The outcome of this approach is a soft K-means algorithm similar to the EM algorithm for Gaussian mixture models. The results show the algorithm delivers decision boundaries that consistently classify the field into three clusters, one for each crop health level. The methodology presented in this paper represents a venue for further research towards automated crop damage assessments and biosecurity surveillance.