In comparison to the southern pine beetle (SPB), (Dendroctonus frontalis Zimmermann), less is known about the three species of Ips bark beetles; the six-spined engraver, Ips calligraphus (Germar); the eastern five-spined engraver, Ips grandicollis (Eichhoff); and the small southern pine engraver, Ips avulses (Eichhoff). Ips commonly enter a stand following the first commercial thinning, feeding on slash and stressed individuals. However, the factors that influence Ips severity are poorly understood. Therefore, this project was designed to study the seasonal effects of first commercial thinning operations on Ips activity in north Mississippi loblolly pine stands. Treatments represented the most commonly used thinning practices in this area (i.e., a fifth row harvest with select, a third row harvest with select, and control). Treatments were duplicated three times per site and two sites were utilized to compare Ips movement to harvesting season.

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SPBMODEL, a legacy southern pine beetle (SPB) simulation model, was translated into a new JavaTM model called Javahog. The Javahog output was verified to be essentially identical to SPBMODEL output by means of standard and paired t-tests. Javahog was placed online and is currently accessible via a servlet. Genetic algorithms (GAs) were applied to the Javahog model. GAs are a type of optimization heuristic that operate as an analog to evolution. GAs "evolve" a very good solution to a complex problem. In this case, GAs were intended to evolve a very good version of SPBMODEL. GAs were applied in part to improve upon the SPBMODEL design, and in part to demonstrate that GAs are effective tools for recalibrating legacy simulation models. Beyond simply recalibrating model parameters, the GA was used to select optimal functional forms for the development rates of each SPB life stage. The GA evolved a model that performed better than SPBMODEL at predicting observed field data, according to a balanced fitness function and according to sums of squared errors. However, from a visual comparison of the output of both models versus observed field data, neither model achieved satisfactory performance. / Master of Science

The southern pine beetle (SPB) (Dendroctonus frontalis Zimm.) is one of the most destructive forest insect pests in the southeastern United States and has historically had a large impact on the forests of North Carolina. Many characteristics of a forest can contribute to SPB susceptibility including stand density, growth rate, age, soil type, and position on the landscape. This work was undertaken in an effort to assist and improve on the current federal SPB hazard modeling being conducted for North Carolina by the USDA Forest Service – Forest Health Protection's Forest Health Technology Enterprise Team (FHTET). In our study, predictive SPB susceptibility models were developed for each physiographic region in North Carolina using two variables not currently included in the FHTET modeling, mean stand age and the in-stand percentage of sawtimber-sized pines. These variables were obtained from USDA Forest Service – Forest Inventory and Analysis (FIA) data and North Carolina Forest Service historical SPB records creating a dataset of both infested and non-infested stands and the models were developed using the CART® classification tree approach. Two model-derived age classes (older than and younger than 22 years) were identified on the landscape using current Landsat 5 Thematic Mapper (TM) imagery chronosequences of disturbance index (DI) â transformed scenes to identify stand-replacing disturbances, resulting in a kappa statistic of 0.6364 for the younger than 22 year age class and 0.7778 for the older than 22 years age class. A kappa value of 1 is ideal. The CART® modeling effort produced valid models in all three physiographic regions of North Carolina, though the complexity of the piedmont model makes it impractical for use in the field. The dependent variable in the classification tree was presence or absence of SPB outbreak and the test sample error percentages were similar across regions, with errors ranging between 23.76 - 34.95 percent. Overall prediction success, based on the software's internal cross-validation procedure, was likewise comparable across the regions with 72.28 - 89.56 percent correctly predicted. Based on our modeling, stand age and percent sawtimber should be included in future FHTET SPB hazard modeling efforts for the coastal plain and mountains, respectively. Age classes can be reasonably estimated using Landsat or other multispectral imagery. / Master of Science

Nicrophorus americanus is a federally endangered species whose range has decreased dramatically since the 1920s. It is a nocturnal species that is only active from May to September when temperatures reach at least 15.5°C for three nights in a row. It once ranged throughout North America, from Maine and the southern parts of Canada, west to South Dakota and south to Texas. The historic Texas population consists of four Texas specimens from the 1880s residing at the Philadelphia Academy of Science Invertebrate Collection. Since then, there were no confirmed specimens in Texas, until 2003 when a single individual was found in Lamar County, Texas. The population discovered in Lamar County has been on a steady decrease from 2005, 223 individuals captured, until 2008 only 8 individuals captured. Since 2008, no individuals have been captured in Texas, despite intense surveys. It is possible that the Texas population is a sink population with the Oklahoma population to its north, acting as the source. Genetic analysis of the Texas and Oklahoma populations would help to answer this question and analysis of the entire population may answer questions to why the species declined leaving only the peripheral populations. The specific habitat variables that caused the population to re-colonize and go extinct in Texas are unclear, but when determined could play a critical role in managing the population. / text

This research investigated the phenology of the striped flea beetle (Phyllotreta striolata (Fabricius) (SFB) and crucifer flea beetle (Phyllotreta cruciferae (Goeze)) (CFB), and examined the efficacy and the persistence of biological activity of the reduced-risk insecticides cyantraniliprole, clothianidin, and thiamethoxam applied as seed treatments to spring canola. Yellow sticky cards were placed around field perimeters in order to assess if CFB and SFB have synchronous phenology. It was found that CFB and SFB have largely asynchronous populations in southern Ontario. In laboratory bioassays, while flea beetle control with cyantraniliprole was comparable to that provided by thiamethoxam or clothianidin at the cotyledon stage, control did not persist through the 1st and 2nd leaf stages. Thiamethoxam and clothianidin both provided moderate control of flea beetles in both 1st and 2nd leaves. Field studies suggested that cyantraniliprole may offer control of flea beetles comparable to that provided by thiamethoxam and clothianidin. / E.I. DuPont Canada Co.