High-fidelity tracking data gathered on minibus taxis in Stellenbosch, South Africa.

Minibus taxis, a form of informal shared mobility that carries up to 16 passengers, is the main mode of public transport in sub-Saharan Africa, and given global trends, a large-scale shift to electric paratransit is imminent in the coming decades. Modeling the energy consumption (kWh/km) of electric vehicle (EV) fleets is a pre-requisite for planning for fleet deployment, especially in energy-constrained contexts. Given the paucity of EVs in sub-Saharan Africa, ground-truth data on the energy consumption of electric paratransit does not exist for many developing contexts. Consequently, GPS tracking data on internal combustion engine (ICE) versions of these vehicles is often used to estimate the energy consumption of an electric equivalent. To date, only per-minute GPS tracking data has been captured on these vehicles and used for energy consumption estimates. But this sampling frequency is insufficient for accurate energy consumption estimates, especially given the unique micro-mobility patterns of minibus taxis that are characterized by many rapid acceleration/deceleration events in quick succession. Although simulators can be used to interpolate between the dataset, they have been shown to be inaccurate in the regional context. This article presents a dataset of high-fidelity micromobility data captured on minibus taxis in transit on four typical route types: inter-city, intra-city, uphill, and downhill. The main objective was to estimate energy requirements for the eventual electrification of these vehicles, the data was thus processed according to an electro-kinetic model. This high-fidelity mobility data was captured by "standardised passengers" with bespoke GPS-location logging devices sampling at 1 Hz. Trips on the four route types were recorded and saved in six folders - three routes, each in two directions, with one route being uphill in one direction and downhill in another. Each of the six folders have subfolders for time of day - morning, afternoon, and evening. In total 62 trips were recorded with varying durations, depending on the traffic and route length.

Natural enemies of three mealybug species (Hemiptera: Pseudococcidae) found on citrus and effects of some insecticides on the mealybug parasitoid Coccidoxenoides peregrinus (Hymenoptera: Encyrtidae) in South Africa.

The population density of mealybug species in some South African citrus orchards has increased to pest status in recent years. The characterization of the natural enemy complex and quantification of their contribution to the control of Planococcus citri (Risso), Pseudococcus longispinus (Targioni-Tozzetti) and Pseudococcus calceolariae (Maskell) on Citrus limon (L.) and Citrus reticulata (Blanco) was investigated through intensive sampling. Eight primary and four secondary parasitoids, and two predator species were identified from P. citri and P. calceolariae. Anagyrus pseudococci (Girault) and Coccidoxenoides peregrinus (Timberlake) were the most common species, accounting for 44% and 21% of the total. Of the five primary parasitoids reared from P. longispinus, A. pseudococci and Anagyrus sp. were predominant, comprising 41% and 30%. Nymphal and adult parasitism (range = 0-26% vs. 0-66%) and predation (range = 0-5.6% vs. 0-4.1%) varied significantly between host trees and mealybug species (P < 0.001). The numbers of nymphal instars and adult stages of P. calceolariae and P. longispinus and the nymphal stage of P. citri that were parasitized and killed by predators correlated significantly with the total number of hosts on which they acted (P < 0.01), suggesting a density-dependent association. Laboratory bioassay of nine contact insecticides (methidathion, methomyl, methyl-parathion, parathion, profenofos and prothiofos) against C. peregrinus indicated that all were highly toxic, causing 98-100% mortality in < 6 h of treatment. The IGRs fenoxycarb and triflumuron did not cause significant parasitoid mortality (P > 0.05). However, a mixture of pyriproxyfen and mineral oil caused a marginally significant mortality (P < 0.05).

Population dynamics of the white wax scale, Ceroplastes destructor (Hemiptera: Coccidae), on citrus in South Africa, with implications for biological control.

The population dynamics of the white wax scale, Ceroplastes destructor Newstead, was studied intensively in four easy-peel citrus orchards in the Western Cape Province of South Africa over three consecutive years (1997-1999). Key factor analysis was used to determine and quantify the contribution of individual mortality factors to the total generation mortality. Key stage mortality, determined from a cohort life table, was in the third instar and pre-ovipositing female stages. Mortality of C. destructor was caused primarily by parasitoids, predators and miscellaneous factors. Parasitoids and miscellaneous factors acted as density-dependent regulatory agents during the pre-ovipositional and first instar stages respectively. This has implications for biological control of C. destructor. Some of the mortality factors acted either randomly with no reference to the population densities or in an inverse density-dependent manner during the egg-crawler, second or third instar stages.