Calpain regulates actin remodeling during cell spreading.

Previous studies suggest that the Ca2+-dependent proteases, calpains, participate in remodeling of the actin cytoskeleton during wound healing and are active during cell migration. To directly test the role that calpains play in cell spreading, several NIH-3T3- derived clonal cell lines were isolated that overexpress the biological inhibitor of calpains, calpastatin. These cells stably overexpress calpastatin two- to eightfold relative to controls and differ from both parental and control cell lines in morphology, spreading, cytoskeletal structure, and biochemical characteristics. Morphologic characteristics of the mutant cells include failure to extend lamellipodia, as well as abnormal filopodia, extensions, and retractions. Whereas wild-type cells extend lamellae within 30 min after plating, all of the calpastatin-overexpressing cell lines fail to spread and assemble actin-rich processes. The cells genetically altered to overexpress calpastatin display decreased calpain activity as measured in situ or in vitro. The ERM protein ezrin, but not radixin or moesin, is markedly increased due to calpain inhibition. To confirm that inhibition of calpain activity is related to the defect in spreading, pharmacological inhibitors of calpain were also analyzed. The cell permeant inhibitors calpeptin and MDL 28, 170 cause immediate inhibition of spreading. Failure of the intimately related processes of filopodia formation and lamellar extension indicate that calpain is intimately involved in actin remodeling and cell spreading.

Aggression and mating success in male spider mites.

Male Tetranychus urticae search for and defend quiescent pharate females. Intruding males may be threatened or attacked. Fights involve pushing and grappling with the forelegs, jousting with the mouthparts, and entangling the opponent with silk. In these encounters larger males usually win. Sole possession of a female at her ecdysis virtually ensures successful mating.

Ovipositional preferences of the Japanese beetle (Coleoptera: Scarabaeidae) among warm- and cool-season turfgrass species.

Japanese beetles, Popillia japonica Newman (Coleoptera: Scarabaeidae), were evaluated for ovipositional preferences among four turfgrasses common in northwestern Arkansas. Choice assays revealed females preferred to oviposit in tall fescue (Festuca arundinacea Schreb.) and zoysiagrass (Zoysia japonica Steud.), and that they avoided oviposition in common bermudagrass (Cynodon dactylon [L.] Pers.) and hybrid bermudagrass (C. dactylon x C. transvaalensis Pers.). Significantly fewer eggs were oviposited in hybrid bermudagrass in a no-choice assay, suggesting that chemical and/or physical plant characteristics deter oviposition in that grass. The percentage of turfgrass cores with evidence of female activity (presence of female or eggs, or signs of female digging) in choice assays revealed no differences among treatments, yet significantly fewer hybrid bermudagrass cores had eggs. These results suggest that many females did not initially reject hybrid bermudagrass based on aboveground plant characteristics, but rather they left without ovipositing. Therefore, resistance in hybrid bermudagrass is likely expressed below ground. Our results suggest that the use of hybrid bermudagrass as a means of cultural control in an integrated pest management program may discourage Japanese beetle oviposition and subsequent grub infestations in lawns, golf courses, or sports fields.

Epidermal growth factor activates m-calpain (calpain II), at least in part, by extracellular signal-regulated kinase-mediated phosphorylation.

How m-calpain is activated in cells has challenged investigators because in vitro activation requires near-millimolar calcium. Previously, we demonstrated that m-calpain activation by growth factors requires extracellular signal-regulated kinase (ERK); this enables tail deadhesion and allows productive motility. We now show that ERK directly phosphorylates and activates m-calpain both in vitro and in vivo. We identified serine 50 as required for epidermal growth factor (EGF)-induced calpain activation in vitro and in vivo. Replacing the serine with alanine limits activation by EGF and subsequent cell deadhesion and motility. A construct with the serine converted to glutamic acid displays constitutive activity in vivo; expression of an estrogen receptor fusion construct produces a tamoxifen-sensitive enzyme. Interestingly, EGF-induced m-calpain activation occurs in the absence of increased intracellular calcium levels; EGF triggers calpain even in the presence of intracellular calcium chelators and in calcium-free media. These data provide evidence that m-calpain can be activated through the ERK cascade via direct phosphorylation and that this activation may occur in the absence of cytosolic calcium fluxes.

v-Src-induced modulation of the calpain-calpastatin proteolytic system regulates transformation.

v-Src-induced oncogenic transformation is characterized by alterations in cell morphology, adhesion, motility, survival, and proliferation. To further elucidate some of the signaling pathways downstream of v-Src that are responsible for the transformed cell phenotype, we have investigated the role that the calpain-calpastatin proteolytic system plays during oncogenic transformation induced by v-Src. We recently reported that v-Src-induced transformation of chicken embryo fibroblasts is accompanied by calpain-mediated proteolytic cleavage of the focal adhesion kinase (FAK) and disassembly of the focal adhesion complex. In this study we have characterized a positive feedback loop whereby activation of v-Src increases protein synthesis of calpain II, resulting in degradation of its endogenous inhibitor calpastatin. Reconstitution of calpastatin levels by overexpression of exogenous calpastatin suppresses proteolytic cleavage of FAK, morphological transformation, and anchorage-independent growth. Furthermore, calpastatin overexpression represses progression of v-Src-transformed cells through the G(1) stage of the cell cycle, which correlates with decreased pRb phosphorylation and decreased levels of cyclins A and D and cyclin-dependent kinase 2. Calpain 4 knockout fibroblasts also exhibit impaired v-Src-induced morphological transformation and anchorage-independent growth. Thus, modulation of the calpain-calpastatin proteolytic system plays an important role in focal adhesion disassembly, morphological transformation, and cell cycle progression during v-Src-induced cell transformation.

Patterns of recurrence in patients with high-grade soft-tissue sarcomas.

From July 1975 to December 1982, 563 patients were referred to the Surgery Branch of the National Cancer Institute with the diagnosis of soft-tissue sarcoma. Three hundred and seven of these patients had fully resectable, localized high-grade soft-tissue sarcomas and were treated at the National Cancer Institute using standard protocols with surgery alone, or in combination with chemotherapy and/or radiotherapy. An aggressive surgical approach was undertaken in the management of patients who subsequently developed recurrent disease. These 307 cases have been reviewed, with a median duration of follow-up of 30 months, to determine the frequency of recurrent disease, the patterns of recurrence, and the impact of surgery on the survival of patients who developed recurrent disease. Disease recurred in one hundred seven patients (107/307, 35%), with a median disease-free interval of 18 months (range, 0.5 to 72.0 months). The frequency of recurrence by site of primary sarcoma was extremity, 31% (65/211); head and neck, 33% (4/12); trunk, 40% (17/42); retroperitoneum, 47% (17/36); and breast, 67% (4/6). Isolated pulmonary metastatic disease was the most common pattern of initial recurrence (56/107, 52%) followed by isolated local recurrence (21/107, 20%). Single other sites of recurrence and multiple concurrent sites of recurrence each accounted for 14% (15/107) of all initial recurrences. The relative frequency of each of these four patterns of recurrence varied with the site of the primary sarcoma. The outcome for patients with recurrent disease depended on the site of recurrence, rather than on the site of the primary sarcoma. Sixty-six patients (66/107, 62%) with recurrent disease were rendered surgically disease-free with the first recurrence, including 40 (40/56, 72%) patients with isolated pulmonary metastases, 20 patients (20/21, 96%) with isolated local recurrences, five patients (5/15, 33%), with isolated other sites of recurrence and one patient (1/15, 7%) with multiple sites of initial recurrence. Following surgical resection, the actuarial three-year survival for the 66 patients rendered disease-free was 51%. The median survival for the 41 patients not rendered surgically disease-free with the first recurrence was only 7.4 months. Thirty of the sixty-six patients (30/66, 45%) rendered disease-free with the first recurrence remained disease-free at follow-up, with a median follow-up of 28 months from the time of resection of the first recurrence. The remaining 36 patients (36/66, 55%) subsequently recurred, with a median disease-free interval of 7.3 months.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 400 WORDS)

Life history and natural enemy associations of calico scale (Homoptera: Coccidae) in Kentucky.

Seasonal phenology of calico scale, Eulecanium cerasorum (Cockerell), was monitored for 3 yr on various deciduous tree species in central Kentucky. Infestations were found on 16 host species in six plant families. Calico scale is a univoltine parthenogenic species that overwinters as second instars on bark. Nymphs molted to adult females around mid-April and began producing eggs in late April. Mean fecundity ranged from 3,728 to 4,654 eggs per female, depending on host plant species. Date of first crawler hatch in 2001-2003 ranged from 21 to 26 May, corresponding to a mean accumulation of 818 +/- 2 Celsius degree-days (DDC), calculated from 1 January and a base of 4.4 degrees C. This value predicted crawler hatch within 2 d in Lexington, KY, in 2004. Crawler dispersal lasted 2 to 3 wk. Upon hatching, crawlers move to leaves where they feed during summer. Crawlers primarily settled on the abaxial side of leaves and their within-leaf distribution varied between different tree species. Settled crawlers molted in mid-July and second instars remained on leaves until late September through mid-October, when they returned to bark to overwinter. On hackberry, Celtis occidentalis L., they were concentrated toward the basal end of shoots, primarily because leaf flush continued beyond the end of the crawler dispersal period. Crawler distribution did not differ between upper and lower canopy zones. Fourteen species of parasitoids and a coccinellid beetle were reared from individual scales. Monitoring with sticky traps in tree canopies confirmed that targeting crawlers with insecticides during late May or June would not coincide with peak flight activity of the scale's primary parasitoids.

Thoracic manifestations of the acquired immune deficiency syndrome.

The acquired immune deficiency syndrome is characterized by the development of multiple recurrent opportunistic infections or unusual neoplasms in individuals with no prior history of immune suppression. This report summarizes the thoracic diseases encountered in such patients before after death and the role of diagnostic techniques currently used in the evaluation of thoracic disease in 15 patients with this syndrome. Efficacy of treatment was determined by correlation with postmortem findings in all patients. Pulmonary disease was present in all 15 patients and necessitated 23 transbronchial biopsies in 11 patients. Pneumocystis carinii pneumonia and cytomegalovirus pneumonia were the most common findings. Nine open lung biopsies in eight patients disclosed either Pneumocystis carinii pneumonia or Kaposi's sarcoma. Esophageal disease was present in four patients, and endoscopic evaluation demonstrated Candida esophagitis (two), esophageal Kaposi's sarcoma (one), and cytomegalovirus esophagitis and Kaposi's sarcoma (one). Mean time to death from diagnosis of acquired immune deficiency syndrome was 7.7 months, with respiratory insufficiency being the most common cause of death (9/15, 60%). Pneumocystis carinii pneumonia was successfully eradicated in 70% of the patients. Candida esophagitis was ameliorated in both patients with the disease. Unsuspected pulmonary Kaposi's sarcoma, cytomegalovirus pneumonitis, and other infectious pathogens were documented at autopsy. These data reveal that Pneumocystis carinii pneumonia and Candida esophagitis can be managed successfully in patients with acquired immune deficiency syndrome if appropriately diagnosed. The major cause of death in this series was pulmonary insufficiency, often the result of severe cytomegalovirus infection. Thoracic surgeons must continue to play an aggressive and important role in the early diagnosis and management of potentially treatable pulmonary and esophageal disease in these patients.

Rhythmic variations of valine and leucine decarboxylation in rat diaphragm.

Daily rhythmic variations of valine and leucine decarboxylation in the rat diaphragm were measured. Both valine and leucine decarboxylation increased during the hours of darkness and decreased during hours of light. Hypophysectomy eliminated the daily variation of decarboxylation. When food is available ad lib. to normal rats, the time of most active feeding coincides with the hours of darkness. Therefore, the period of darkness and maximum feeding coincides with the maximum oxidation of these two essential amino acids, valine and leucine, by diaphragm, and an active pituitary appears to be necessary to maintain this relationship. This model can be used to study interrelationships to behavioral, neurohumoral, and metabolic rhythms.

Noncommunicating accessory uterine cavity.

OBJECTIVE: To report a case of a noncommunicating accessory uterine cavity. DESIGN: Case report. SETTING: University-affiliated reproductive endocrinology practice. PATIENT(S): A 15-year-old nulligravida with increasing dysmenorrhea. INTERVENTION(S): Pelvic ultrasound, intravenous pyelogram, hysterosalpingogram, laparoscopy, laparotomy, and resection of noncommunicating accessory uterine cavity. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURE(S): Results of imaging studies, surgical examination, and resection of anomaly. RESULT(S): Complete resection of accessory cavity and resolution of dysmenorrhea. CONCLUSION(S): The patient had a müllerian anomaly in which the uterus contained two uterine cavities. One normal uterine cavity with communication to both fallopian tubes was present along with a noncommunicating, accessory uterine cavity.

Endometrial biopsy during hormone replacement cycle in donor oocyte recipients before in vitro fertilization-embryo transfer.

OBJECTIVE: To examine the usefulness of a trial cycle of hormone replacement therapy (HRT) and endometrial biopsy before the actual ET cycle in recipients of donated oocytes. DESIGN: Retrospective review. SETTING: Clinical practice at the South Texas Fertility Center, San Antonio, Texas. PATIENT(S): Thirty-six concurrent patients who underwent a trial cycle of HRT with endometrial biopsy before the ET cycle with donated oocytes fertilized in vitro. INTERVENTION(S): Patients > or =40 years of age received 100 mg of i.m. progesterone in oil daily; patients <40 years of age received 50 mg daily. Endometrial biopsies were performed during the late luteal phase of the trial cycle. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURE(S): Histologic dating of the biopsy specimens was correlated with the chronologic date of the biopsy. RESULT(S): Five of 20 patients > or =40 years of age had out-of-phase biopsies. All 16 patients <40 years of age had in-phase biopsies. All out-of-phase biopsies subsequently were corrected with higher doses of progesterone. Pregnancy rates after fresh and frozen ETs were not significantly different between the two age groups. CONCLUSION(S): Patients > or =40 years of age are at risk of having out-of-phase endometrial biopsies while they are receiving standard HRT despite receiving higher doses of progesterone. Trial HRT cycles with endometrial biopsies are recommended.

Low-dose follicular-phase cocaine administration disrupts menstrual and ovarian cyclicity in rhesus monkeys.

OBJECTIVE: To evaluate the effects of daily low-dose follicular-phase cocaine administration on menstrual cyclicity, ovulation rates, corpus luteum function, and hormone levels in rhesus monkeys. METHOD: Normally cycling, drug-naive, adult rhesus monkeys were randomized to receive either 1 mg/kg of cocaine (n = 7), 2 mg/kg of cocaine (n = 7), or normal saline (n = 7) daily on cycle days 2 to 14. Daily blood samples were obtained through indwelling catheters for measurement of serum gonadotropins and ovarian steroids. Daily vaginal swabs were obtained to determine onset of menses. Laparoscopy was performed 2 days after the midcycle estrogen peak to document ovulation. Daily caloric intakes as well as pretreatment and posttreatment weights were recorded. RESULTS: Two of seven monkeys receiving 1 mg/kg per day and two of seven monkeys receiving 2 mg/kg per day of cocaine had timely ovulation and normal menstrual cycle lengths. One monkey receiving the 2-mg/kg dose ovulated on cycle day 24 and had a short luteal phase (7 days) with a mean progesterone level of 2.4 ng/mL. All seven saline-treated control monkeys ovulated normally; the mean cycle length was 29 days and all had adequate luteal phases. The difference in ovulation rates between cocaine-treated and control monkeys was statistically significant (P = .003). There were no differences in basal levels of LH or FSH between treatment groups. There were no significant differences in weight change or caloric intake among groups. One third of the subsequent menstrual cycles in cocaine-treated monkeys were of abnormal duration. CONCLUSION: Daily low-dose follicular-phase cocaine administration disrupts menstrual cyclicity and folliculogenesis. This effect is independent of weight loss, caloric intake, and basal gonadotropin levels. Cocaine exposure may have a persistent effect on menstrual and ovarian cyclicity in some monkeys.

Nonmedical influences on medical decision making: an experimental technique using videotapes, factorial design, and survey sampling.

OBJECTIVE: To study nonmedical influences on the doctor-patient interaction. A technique using simulated patients and "real" doctors is described. DATA SOURCES: A random sample of physicians, stratified on such characteristics as demographics, specialty, or experience, and selected from commercial and professional listings. STUDY DESIGN: A medical appointment is depicted on videotape by professional actors. The patient's presenting complaint (e.g., chest pain) allows a range of valid interpretation. Several alternative versions are taped, featuring the same script with patient-actors of different age, sex, race, or other characteristics. Fractional factorial design is used to select a balanced subset of patient characteristics, reducing costs without biasing the outcome. DATA COLLECTION: Each physician is shown one version of the videotape appointment and is asked to describe how he or she would diagnose or treat such a patient. PRINCIPAL FINDINGS: Two studies using this technique have been completed to date, one involving chest pain and dyspnea and the other involving breast cancer. The factorial design provided sufficient power, despite limited sample size, to demonstrate with statistical significance various influences of the experimental and stratification variables, including the patient's gender and age and the physician's experience. Persistent recruitment produced a high response rate, minimizing selection bias and enhancing validity. CONCLUSION: These techniques permit us to determine, with a degree of control unattainable in observational studies, whether medical decisions as described by actual physicians and drawn from a demographic or professional group of interest, are influenced by a prescribed set of nonmedical factors.

Bringing social structure back into clinical decision making.

Although research in the past twenty years has resulted in an increasingly sophisticated understanding of clinical decision making processes, the dominant approach in this area of inquiry remains limited. Most studies emphasize normative models of how decisions ought to be made, others attempt to describe physicians' thinking, but few take the social context of decision making systematically into account. Research models typically assume that physicians are autonomous professionals practicing in socially insular clinical settings--an approach that is consistent with classic formulations of the social structure of medical practice, but they ignore 30 years of sociological research on research on patient-physician relationships and major historical changes in the structure of medical practice. Eisenberg's still timely advice to students of clinical decision making--that they need to describe decision making in the context of 'sociologic influences' (including patient, physician and practice setting characteristics)--is expanded in the present discussion. Recent studies are reviewed, highlighting important dimensions of social structure impinging on physicians' decision making. Findings indicate that the process of clinical decision making is likely influenced by patients' age, gender, socioeconomic status, and race, physicians' professional training and experience, as well as by larger structural features of organized clinical settings. Our review of these studies on the social context of clinical decision making, however, reveals major methodological limitations including those inherently imposed by secondary data analysis, normative approaches, written case vignettes, small, non-random samples and the inadequate control of confounding influences. We present a feasible, alternative research strategy, built on a factorial experimental design. Illustrative findings indicate how complex social structural influence on clinical decision making may be disentangled in an unconfounded manner.

Non-medical influences on medical decision-making.

BACKGROUND: The influence of non-medical factors on physicians' decision-making has been documented in many observational studies, but rarely in an experimental setting capable of demonstrating cause and effect. We conducted a controlled factorial experiment to assess the influence of non-medical factors on the diagnostic and treatment decisions made by practitioners of internal medicine in two common medical situations. METHOD: One hundred and ninety-two white male internists individually viewed professionally produced video scenarios in which the actor-patient, presenting with either chest pain or dyspnea, possessed various balanced combinations of sex, race, age, socioeconomic status, and health insurance coverage. Physician subjects were randomly drawn from lists of internists in private practice, hospital-based practice, and HMO's, at two levels of experience. RESULTS: The most frequent diagnoses for both chest pain and dyspnea were psychogenic origin and cardiac problems. Smoking cessation was the most frequent treatment recommendation for both conditions. Younger patients (all other factors being the same) were significantly more likely to receive the psychogenic diagnosis. Older patients were more likely to receive the cardiac diagnosis for chest pain, particularly if they were insured. HMO-based physicians were more likely to recommend a follow-up visit for chest pain. Several interactions of patient and physician factors were significant in addition to the main effects. CONCLUSIONS: The variability in decision-making evidenced by physicians in this experiment was not entirely accounted for by strictly rational Bayesian inference (the common prescriptive model for medical decision-making), in-as-much as non-medical factors significantly affected the decisions that they made. There is a need to supplement idealized medical schemata with considerations of social behavior in any comprehensive theory of medical decision-making.

Nutritional quality of specific leaf tissues and selective feeding by a specialist leafminer.

Many folivorous insects are selective feeders which consume specific leaf tissues. For specialist herbivores feeding on plants of overall low nutritional quality, selective feeding may allow consumption of a high quality resource. Selective feeding may also allow insects to avoid structural or allelochemical defenses. We examined the structure and chemistry of leaves of American holly, Ilexopaca Aiton, and the feeding site of its principal insect herbivore, the native holly leafminer, Phytomyza ilicicola Loew (Diptera: Agromyzidae), to test the hypothesis that the leafminer consumes tissues which are of greater nutritional quality than the leaf as a whole. Holly leaves have a continuous layer of palisade mesophyll, uninterrupted by fibers or vascular bundles. The leafminer feeds entirely within this layer. The palisade mesophyll contained 196 mg/g dry wt extractable protein, more than twice as much as the leaf as a whole, and 375 mg/g dry wt saponins, more than 9 times that of the leaf as a whole. The water content of the palisade mesophyll was 66% higher than that of the leaf as a whole. The palisade mesophyll is 3-4 cell layers thick in leaves grown in full sun, but only 2 layers thick in shaded leaves. Crystals, probably of calcium oxalate, are abundant in the abaxial cell layer. These may impose mechanical constraints on larval feeding in shade leaves, which are thinner than sun leaves. Selective feeding on the middle palisade mesophyll of sun leaves allows the leafminer to consume a resource which is lacking in mechanical barriers and is rich in protein and water, but which contains large amounts of saponins.

Interaction of Euonymus scale (Homoptera: Diaspididae) feeding damage and severe water stress on leaf abscission and growth of Euonymus fortunei.

Rooted cuttings of Euonymus fortunei were grown in a 2x2 factorial design experiment with or without euonymus scales and/or water stress. Infested plants and water stressed plants abscised leaves whereas uninfested, unstressed plants did not. There was significant interaction between scale infestation and water stress, with a synergistic effect on leaf abscission. Both scale infestation and water stress reduced the root weight, but there was no resulting change in the root/shoot ratio.Naturally infested leaves on plants growing outdoors had a higher solute potential (ψs) and a lower pressure potential (ψp) than did uninfested leaves with the same water potential (ψW). Infested leaves may therefore be more prone to wilting. However, scale-damaged leaves also have increased diffusive resistance and lowered transpiration rates, suggesting that scales impair normal function of guard cells. The possible contribution of these factors to the heightened susceptibility of infested leaves to abscission following water stress is discussed.

Winter starch reserves of white oak as a predictor of attack by the twolined chestnut borer, Agrilus bilineatus (Weber) (Coleoptera: Buprestidae).

The twolined chestnut borer, Agrilus bilineatus (Weber) (Coleoptera: Buprestidae), attacks oaks (Quercus spp.) and is associated with extensive mortality of trees in the eastern deciduous forests of North America. We tested the hypothesis that winter starch reserves of oak roots are an indicator of tree vigor and that only trees low in stored starch would be attacked by A. bilineatus. We measured the levels of stored starch in the roots of 200 non-infested healthy white oaks during the dormant season and determined their correlation with A. bilineatus attacks the following spring. There was a significant increase in A. bilineatus captures on sticky traps with a decrease in winter starch reserves. Trees low in stored starch that were also stressed by phloem-girdling attracted 3.7 times as many beetles as did non-girdled trees that were low in starch. However, non-girdled trees that had low winter starch reserves were also attacked. Only oaks that had had extremely low winter root starch reserves (<5mg/g dry weight of root sapwood tissue) were heavily attacked by A. bilineatus and subsequently died. One third of non-girdled low starch trees and 67% of phloem-girdled low starch trees died, whereas none of the trees with root starch >5 mg/g dry wt died. These results indicate that winter starch reserves are a good predictor of A. bilineatus attack.

The influences of patient characteristics and physician experience on case recall.

The study focused on the influences of both patient characteristics and physician experience on the recall of two breast cancer cases. Two general research questions were addressed: 1) whether patient characteristics such as age, race, and assertiveness affect a physician's initial problem representation, and 2) whether the recall advantage for physicians of intermediate levels of experience extends to physicians who have been out of medical school for at least six years, 128 physicians with a minimum of six years' experience were presented with two videotapes of a doctor-patient encounter. In the first videotape (the pre-workup scenario), the patient had just discovered a lump; in the second (the post-workup scenario), she had recently had a biopsy. Following the presentation of each videotape, the physicians were instructed to record a synopsis of the case prior to making diagnoses, ordering tests, and providing treatment recommendations. The synopses were coded to capture information from the cases that the physicians were able to recall and inferences that they generated based on this information. Two critical findings were obtained. First, none of the patient characteristics investigated consistently produced differences in recall or inference generation across the two scenarios. Second, physician recall was a monotonically decreasing function of years of experience. The latter result is interpreted using a theoretical framework from Schmidt and Boshuizen.

Impact of whole-canopy and systemic insecticidal treatments on Callirhytis cornigera (Hymenoptera: Cynipidae) and associated parasitoids on pin oak.

The gall wasp Callirhytis cornigera (Osten Sacken) is a cynipid with alternating generations that produce large, woody stem galls and tiny blister-like leaf galls on pin oak, Quercus palustris Muenchhausen, in the United States. We tested 3 approaches to control the leaf-galling generation, and determined their impact on associated parasitoids and effectiveness in reducing numbers of new stem galls. First, trees were sprayed with bifenthrin or chlorpyrifos in late March to kill females emerging from stem galls before they oviposited into buds. Second, concentrated solutions of abamectin, imidacloprid, or bidrin were injected from pressurized containers into tree sapwood to control larvae developing in young leaf galls. Finally, systemic insecticides (acephate, abamectin, dimethoate, or imidacloprid) were sprayed at early leaf expansion (2 May) or to young, expanded leaves (17 May) to target larvae in leaf galls. Parasitoids, mostly eulophids, accounted for approximately 70% mortality of leaf-galling C. cornigera larvae on untreated trees. Whole-canopy sprays during C. cornigera emergence from stem galls reduced overall numbers of galled leaves and leaf galls. Trunk injections of bidrin or abamectin resulted in significant mortality of gall inhabitants, including parasitoids. However, neither of the aforementioned approaches significantly reduced numbers of new stem galls. Sprays of abamectin, dimethoate, or imidacloprid applied on 2 May caused high mortality of all gall inhabitants. There was no net benefit, however, because parasitism caused a similar reduction in C. cornigera survival on unsprayed shoots. Sprays applied later in leaf expansion had little impact on gall inhabitants. Of the treatments tested, bifenthrin sprays at bud break provided the greatest reduction in new leaf galls, whereas bidrin injections provided the greatest reduction in gall wasps emerging from galled leaves. This study suggests that gall wasp outbreaks are unlikely to be controlled by a single treatment, regardless of application method.