Location, reproduction and movement of Neoseiulus californicus (Acari: Phytoseiidae) during the autumn, winter and spring in orchards in the south of France
Field samples and experiments conducted in apple orchards in the south of France showed that Neoseiulus californicus (McGregor) searched for prey on the trees and in the ground cover as late as mid-November 1993, and at least as early in the spring as the end of February 1994. Overwintering females fed, expanded and produced viable eggs within 7.9±0.3 (SE) days given the natural light regime, adequate food and temperatures of 17.0±20.6°C. The first generation of N. californicus developed in the field during March and April 1994. N. californicus nymphs, females and males readily moved over bare ground and through a grass ground cover to trap plants located on stakes 1 m above the ground. In the laboratory, the rate of movement of adult females on 0.5 mm copper wire was a linear function of temperature above a threshold of 11.9±0.9°C. At 25°C they travelled 10 m per h. The migration rate of N. californicus to trap plants on stakes placed in an orchard 13 Apr. increased in 2 weeks from 0.07 to 0.57 predators/trap plant/degree-day, while the migration rate to plants placed directly in the ground cover was 1.45 predators/trap plant/degree-day. The largest population of N. californicus in April occurred on Barley, Hordeum murinum L. This plant produces pollen in April and May, and may be useful in biocontrol programs.
Influence of prey availability on reproduction and prey consumption of Phytoseiulus persimilis, Amblyseius californicus and Metaseiulus occidentalis (Acarina: Phytoseiidae)
Abstract As the level of prey availability was increased predators expressed corresponding increases in fecundity per reproductive period, in daily ovipositional rate, in total number of prey killed per reproductive period, in daily number of prey killed per reproductive period and in female:male sex ratio. The number of prey kills per predator egg produced initially increased with increasing prey availability but levelled off at higher levels of prey availability. The total number of reproductive days also increased initially but then declined at the higher levels of prey availability.
RDF Keyword Search based on Keywords-To-SPARQL Translation
In this paper, we present a summary of our work on RDF keyword search. Given a set of keywords, our method automatically generates a set of candidate SPARQL queries, and their natural language description, to be evaluated on the RDF data graph. We discuss our approach, highlighting current and future directions.