Education in the Anthropocene: assessing planetary health science standards in the USA.

The environmental crises defining the Anthropocene demand ubiquitous mitigation efforts, met with collective support. Yet, disengagement and disbelief surrounding planetary health threats are pervasive, especially in the USA. This scepticism may be influenced by inadequate education addressing the scope and urgency of the planetary health crisis. We analysed current K-12 science standards related to planetary health throughout the USA, assessing their quality and potential predictors of variation. While planetary health education varies widely across the USA with respect to the presence and depth of terms, most science standards neglected to convey these concepts with a sense of urgency. Furthermore, state/territory dominant political party and primary gross domestic product (GDP) contributor were each predictive of the quality of planetary health education. We propose that a nation-wide science standard could fully address the urgency of the planetary health crisis and prevent political bias from influencing the breadth and depth of concepts covered.

A century of Illinois hover flies (Diptera: Syrphidae): museum and citizen science data reveal recent range expansions, contractions, and species of potential conservation significance.

Hover flies of the family Syrphidae are a highly diverse group of insects that exhibit varied life histories and provide numerous ecosystem services. Despite their importance, they are highly understudied, and many biological and distributional patterns remain unknown in regions like the midwestern United States. Data from specimens exist in regional insect collections but is largely undigitized and thus inaccessible to much of the scientific community. Here, we report our efforts to identify, recurate, and digitize thousands of specimens from the Illinois Natural History Survey Insect Collection. We then combine these data with existing datasets to compile a comprehensive checklist of Illinois hover fly fauna, assess for temporal range expansion/contraction trends, and identify species of potential conservation significance. All total, the over 20,000 specimens/records we examined revealed 209 species within 71 genera and all 4 subfamilies of Syrphidae to have ever occurred in Illinois. Based on previously published data, 68 of these species are new Illinois state records and 36 expand the previously known range significantly. Numerous species found in Illinois historically have only recently been reported further north, while others of historically southern distribution appear to be extending their range northward, possibly due to anthropogenic factors like climate change. Furthermore, 73 species have not been reported in Illinois since at least 1995, and 27 are deemed to be of potential conservation significance with few to no recent records in the Midwest or elsewhere. Our findings illustrate the importance of routine expansion, curation, and digitization of natural history collections.

Field Borders Provide Winter Refuge for Beneficial Predators and Parasitoids: A Case Study on Organic Farms.

Semi-natural field borders are frequently used in midwestern U.S. sustainable agriculture. These habitats are meant to help diversify otherwise monocultural landscapes and provision them with ecosystem services, including biological control. Predatory and parasitic arthropods (i.e., potential natural enemies) often flourish in these habitats and may move into crops to help control pests. However, detailed information on the capacity of semi-natural field borders for providing overwintering refuge for these arthropods is poorly understood. In this study, we used soil emergence tents to characterize potential natural enemy communities (i.e., predacious beetles, wasps, spiders, and other arthropods) overwintering in cultivated organic crop fields and adjacent field borders. We found a greater abundance, species richness, and unique community composition of predatory and parasitic arthropods in field borders compared to arable crop fields, which were generally poorly suited as overwintering habitat. Furthermore, potential natural enemies tended to be positively associated with forb cover and negatively associated with grass cover, suggesting that grassy field borders with less forb cover are less well-suited as winter refugia. These results demonstrate that semi-natural habitats like field borders may act as a source for many natural enemies on a year-to-year basis and are important for conserving arthropod diversity in agricultural landscapes.

Entomology in the 21st Century: Tackling Insect Invasions, Promoting Advancements in Technology, and Using Effective Science Communication-2018 Student Debates.

The 2018 student debates of the Entomological Society of America were held at the Joint Annual Meeting for the Entomological Societies of America, Canada, and British Columbia in Vancouver, BC. Three unbiased introductory speakers and six debate teams discussed and debated topics under the theme 'Entomology in the 21st Century: Tackling Insect Invasions, Promoting Advancements in Technology, and Using Effective Science Communication'. This year's debate topics included: 1) What is the most harmful invasive insect species in the world? 2) How can scientists diffuse the stigma or scare factor surrounding issues that become controversial such as genetically modified organisms, agricultural biotechnological developments, or pesticide chemicals? 3) What new/emerging technologies have the potential to revolutionize entomology (other than Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats)? Introductory speakers and debate teams spent approximately 9 mo preparing their statements and arguments and had the opportunity to share this at the Joint Annual Meeting with an engaged audience.

Hover fly (Diptera: Syrphidae) diversity and seasonality in North Georgia apple and peach orchards.

Crop pollination and natural biological control provided by beneficial insects have an economic worth of hundreds of billions of dollars annually. Apple and peach production in North Georgia are economically important industries that benefit from these ecological services. Hover flies are dual ecosystem service providers that have been relatively understudied in orchard ecosystems. We investigated the diversity and seasonal activity of hover flies in apple and peach orchards at 2 sites in North Georgia from March to October 2020 and 2021. Bowl traps were used to sample hover flies in orchard edge and interior habitats. The aphidophagous species Toxomerus geminatus (Say) (Diptera: Syrphidae) and Toxomerus marginatus (Say) (Diptera: Syrphidae) comprised 86.6% of the total hover flies collected. Apple orchards yielded the greatest hover fly presence, species richness, and Toxomerus spp. abundance. Hover fly richness and diversity were greatest during postbloom, but Toxomerus spp. abundance was greatest during the bloom period. No differences in presence, richness, diversity, or Toxomerus spp. abundance were found between edge and interior habitats. Toxomerus geminatus and T. marginatus were dominant from March through August, with T. geminatus being more abundant than T. marginatus in March, early April, and August. October sampling produced the greatest hover fly richness. Our results suggest that hover flies are abundant in North Georgia orchards and exhibit substantial spatial and temporal variation in richness and diversity. Expanded studies incorporating additional sampling efforts and methods are needed to further characterize the hover fly fauna and their impact on North Georgia apple and peach orchards.

Can anthophilous hover flies (Diptera: Syrphidae) discriminate neonicotinoid insecticides in sucrose solution?

Understanding how neonicotinoid insecticides affect non-target arthropods, especially pollinators, is an area of high priority and popular debate. Few studies have considered how pollinators interact and detect neonicotinoids, and almost none have examined for these effects in anthophilous Diptera such as hover flies (Syrphidae). We investigated behavioral responses of two species of hover flies, Eristalis arbustorum L. (Eristalinae) and Toxomerus marginatus Say (Syrphinae), when given a choice between artificial flowers with uncontaminated sucrose solution and neonicotinoid-contaminated (clothianidin) sucrose solution at field-realistic levels 2.5 ppb (average) and 150 ppb (high). We examined for 1) evidence that wild-caught flies could detect the insecticide gustatorily by analyzing amount of time spent feeding on floral treatments, and 2) whether flies could discriminate floral treatments visually by comparing visitation rates, spectral reflectance differences, and hover fly photoreceptor sensitivities. We did not find evidence that either species fed more or less on either of the treatment solutions. Furthermore, T. marginatus did not appear to visit one of the flower choices over the other. Eristalis arbustorum, however, visited uncontaminated flowers more often than contaminated flowers. Spectral differences between the flower treatments overlap with Eristalis photoreceptor sensitivities, opening the possibility that E. arbustorum could discriminate sucrose-clothianidin solution visually. The relevance of our findings in field settings are uncertain but they do highlight the importance of visual cues in lab-based choice experiments involving insecticides. We strongly encourage further research in this area and the consideration of both behavioral responses and sensory mechanisms when determining insecticidal impacts on beneficial arthropods.

The Reduviidae (Hemiptera: Heteroptera) of Alabama, with a morphological key to species.

Alabama is one of the most speciose states in the United States, yet many common groups of organisms, including assassin bugs (Hemiptera: Heteroptera: Reduviidae), have yet to be fully documented. The purpose of this manuscript is to identify all known assassin bug species occurring in the state using literature records and specimens from natural history collections, most notably the Auburn University Museum of Natural History Entomology Collection, to provide new state records, a checklist, and a morphological species key of the Alabama Reduviidae. All total, 61 species within 36 genera and 10 subfamilies are reported from Alabama. Additionally, 40 new state literature records are documented: 34 from Alabama and six from other states.