Since the establishment of the brown marmorated stink bug,
Halyomorpha halys
(Stål) (Hemiptera: Pentatomidae) in North America and Europe, there has been a large, multi-group effort to characterize ...the composition and impact of the indigenous community of arthropod natural enemies attacking this invasive pest. In this review, we combine 98 indigenous natural enemy datasets spanning a variety of sampling methods, habitats, and geographic areas. To date, the vast majority of
H. halys
biological control research has focused on the egg stage, using sentinel egg masses to characterize indigenous parasitoid and predator communities and their contribution to
H. halys
egg mortality. Although egg parasitism and predation levels by indigenous natural enemies are low (typically <10% each) in most surveys, total egg mortality attributable to natural enemies can be higher (typically between 5 and 25%; up to 83%)—even though these values were likely underestimated in most cases because some mortality due to biological control was not recognized. In North America, where the most data are available, it appears that the relative prevalence of different indigenous parasitoid species varies among habitat types, particularly between crop and non-crop habitats. Predator species responsible for egg mortality are much less commonly identified, but appear to include a wide variety of generalist chewing and sucking predators. To date, studies of natural enemies attacking
H. halys
nymphs and adults are relatively rare. Based on our review, we identify a number of key research gaps and suggest several directions for future research.
The Pliocene Epoch is a focus of scientific interest as a period of sustained global warmth, with reconstructed CO2 concentrations and a continent configuration similar to modern. Numerous studies ...suggest that the Pliocene was warmer and largely wetter than today, at least in the subtropics, which contrasts with the long-term hydroclimatic response of drying conditions predicted by most climate model simulations. Two key features of Pliocene warmth established from sea surface temperature reconstructions could affect dynamic changes that influence the hydrologic cycle: (1) a weaker Pliocene zonal gradient in sea surface temperature (SST) between the western and eastern equatorial Pacific resembling El Niño-like conditions and (2) polar-amplified Pliocene warmth, supporting a weaker Equator-to-pole temperature gradient. The distribution of wet conditions in western North America and the timing of late Pliocene–Quaternary aridification offer the potential to evaluate the relative roles of these two external forcings of the climate in western North America, with broader global implications for Mediterranean-type climate (MTC) regions. We convened a virtual ICDP workshop that spanned a 2-week period in September 2021, to choose optimal drill sites and legacy cores to address the overall scientific goals, flesh out research questions, and discuss how best to answer them. A total of 56 participants from 12 countries (17 time zones), representing a wide range of disciplines, came together virtually for a series of plenary and working group sessions. We have chosen to study five basins (Butte Valley, Tule Lake, Lake Idaho, Searles Lake, and Verde Valley) that span 7 ∘ of latitude to test our hypotheses and to reconstruct the evolution of western North American hydroclimate with special focus on the time ranges of 4.5–3.5 and 3–2.5 Myr. Although individual Pliocene lake records occur in many areas of the world, the western North American basins are unique and globally significant as deep perennial freshwater Pliocene lakes latitudinally arrayed in a MTC region and are able to capture a response to Pacific forcing. We propose new drill cores from three of these basins. During the workshop, we discussed the stratigraphy and subsurface structure of each basin and revised the chronological frameworks and the basin-to-basin correlations. We also identified the best-suited proxies for hydroclimate reconstructions for each particular basin and put forward a multi-technique strategy for depth–age modeling. Reconstructions based on data from these sites will complement the SST reconstructions from global sites spanning the last 4.5 Ma and elucidate the large-scale hydrological cycle controls associated with both global warming and cooling.
Modern potash salt deposits and associated brines of the Qaidam Basin, western China, demonstrate that some anomalous marine evaporites may have formed from nonmarine brines instead of seawater. ...Qaidam Basin brines are derived from meteoric river inflow mixed with small amounts of CaCl spring inflow similar in composition to many saline formation waters and hydrothermal brines. Evaporation of springenriched inflow yields a predicted mineral sequence including carnallite, bischofite, and tachyhydrite that is identical to several anomalous marine evaporites. Other mixtures of river and spring inflow produce the salt assemblage expected from evaporation of seawater.
Osagid grains from the Lower Permian (Wolfcamp) Winfield Limestone of southern Kansas-northern Oklahoma are small accretionary structures formed in shallow, well-agitated waters on a carbonate shelf ...Osagid grains consist of small shell fragments serving as nuclei, which during formation were rolled about and coated by roughly concentric algal-foraminiferal laminations. Their shapes range from round to subround to elliptical, dependent primarily on the size and shape of the shell nuclei. Grain laminae are dark micrite which in places contain tubules of the blue-green alga Girvanella, and/or various encrusting foraminifers, with either calcareous or agglutinated tests, or intermixtures of all three components. Formic acid etching of individual osagid grains indicates that the agglutinated foraminiferal component is of greater importance than previously believed and can be their principal biotic component. Girvanella tubules appear to be most susceptible to diagenetic alteration, with the end-product generally a dark, micritic groundmass of "algal dust." Since these accretionary structures are not true biological species, the generic term "Osagia" should be dropped and these structures should be called "osagid grains."
Study of collections of "algal biscuits" from the Lower Permian (Wolfcamp) Herington/Krider Limestones of southern Kansas/ northern Oklahoma indicates that these relatively large accretionary ...structures were formed on shallow subtidal grassy seabottoms, within a lagoonal depositional setting. The biscuits are composed of concentric growth laminations of algae and encrusting foraminifers, with various entrapped epizoans. At different times during biscuit growth, the biscuits themselves fell prey to burrowing barnacles and boring annelid worms. That results in modification of originally concentric growth laminae, into distinctive organism-modified, digitate algal-foraminiferal colonies.
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