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The lesser grain borer Rhyzopertha dominica is the major pest of stored paddy rice globally, including in Taiwan. It has strong phototaxis and is good at flying, suitable for developing a light-trapping method to monitor and control it. In the present study, a wavelength of light-emitting diodes (LEDs), i.e., 373 nm, was determined to be the most efficient to trap R. dominica using a dodecagon maze. Accordingly, an LED trap, named the Taiwan Agricultural Research Institute-LED (TARI-LED) trap, was invented, which comprised LEDs of two distinct wavelengths (373 and 408 nm), a wavelength switch, a suction fan, and an insect collector. The trapping efficiency was assessed in a 4-m3 laboratory arena and two paddy rice storehouses. An initial assessment was performed in the laboratory arena and showed that the TARI-LED trap with 373-nm wavelength for R. dominica rapidly increased in the first 30 min, reaching the highest trapping rate (68.5%) after 3 h. In addition, no significant difference was observed between the suction fan turned on or off. The field tests showed that the 373-nm wavelength had the highest effectiveness for trapping R. dominica in the two paddy rice storehouses, and no significant difference was observed in the number of R. dominica trapped by the 373-nm TARI-LED trap or the CDC-UV light trap. In conclusion, our TARI-LED trap 373 nm exhibited high efficiency in trapping R. dominica in paddy rice storehouses. Moreover, a suction fan-free design should benefit long-term and safe use in paddy rice storehouses trapping R. dominica.

Sublethal dosages of imidacloprid cause long-term destructive effects on honey bees at the individual and colony levels. In this review, the molecular effects of sublethal imidacloprid were integrated and reported. Several general effects have been observed among different reports using different approaches. Quantitative PCR approaches revealed that imidacloprid treatments during the adult stage are expressed as changes in immuneresponse, detoxification, and oxidation-reduction response in both workers and queens. In addition, transcriptomic approaches suggested that phototransduction, behavior, and somatic muscle development also were affected. Although worker larvae show a higher tolerance to imidacloprid than adults, molecular evidence reveals its potential impacts. Sublethal imidacloprid treatment during the larval stage causes gene expression changes in larvae, pupae, and adults. Transcriptome profiles suggest that the population and functions of affected differentially expressed genes, DEGs, vary among different worker ages. Furthermore, an early transcriptomic switch from nurse bees to foragers was observed, suggesting that precocious foraging activity may occur. This report comprehensively describes the molecular effects of sublethal dosages of imidacloprid on the honey bee Apis mellifera. The corresponding molecular pathways for physiological and neurological responses in imidacloprid-exposed honey bees were validated. Transcriptomic evidence suggests a global and sustained sublethal impact of imidacloprid on honey bee development.

Anticipatory behaviour is the expectation of a near-future event based on information processed in the past and influences an animal's tactical decisions, particularly when there are significant fitness consequences. The grass lizard (Takydromus viridipunctatus) perches on blades of grass at night which likely reduces the probability of predation by terrestrial predators such as snakes, rodents and shrews. During twilight (starting 30 min before sunrise), they move from above the grass to within grass clumps and this is thought to afford the lizard protection while reducing detection by avian predators. Here, we examined how lizards shift their behaviour as a function of visual detectability to their primary predator, the cattle egret (Bubulcus ibis). We show that the lizards shift from their perch site during twilight at the earliest time at which egrets depart communal roosts. At the same time, visual modelling shows a dramatic increase in the detectability of the lizards to the visual system of egrets. Therefore, anticipatory behaviour in response to environmental cues acts to reduce predation risk as lizards become more conspicuous and predators become more active. Grass lizard anticipatory behaviour appears to be finely tuned by natural selection to adjust to temporal changes in predation risk.

The environmental residue/sublethal doses of neonicotinoid insecticides are believed to generate a negative impact on pollinators, including honey bees. Here we report our recent investigation on how imidacloprid, one of the major neonicotinoids, affects worker bees by profiling the transcriptomes of various ages of bees exposed to different doses of imidacloprid during the larval stage. The results show that imidacloprid treatments during the larval stage severely altered the gene expression profiles and may induce precocious foraging. Differential expression of foraging regulators was found in 14-day-old treated adults. A high transcriptome similarity between larvae-treated 14-day-old adults and 20-day-old controls was also observed, and the similarity was positively correlated with the dose of imidacloprid. One parts per billion (ppb) of imidacloprid was sufficient to generate a long-term impact on the bee’s gene expression as severe as with 50 ppb imidacloprid. The disappearance of nurse bees may be driven not only by the hive member constitution but also by the neonicotinoid-induced precocious foraging behavior.

Thigmotaxis is required in small animals. In this study, we examined how the shelter angle affects the development of German cockroaches

Artificial light at night (ALAN) is a major driver of firefly population declines, but its physiological effects are not well understood. To investigate the impact of ALAN on firefly development, we exposed larval Aquatica ficta fireflies to ALAN for two weeks. High larval mortality was observed in the periods of 1-68 days and 106-134 days post-treatment, which may represent the short- and long-term impacts of ALAN. We then profiled the transcriptome of larval Aquatica ficta fireflies following two weeks of ALAN exposure. A total of 1262 (1.67% out of 75777 unigenes) were differentially expressed in the treatment group: 1157 were down-regulated, and 105 were up-regulated. Up-regulated unigenes were related to regulation of hormone levels, ecdysteroid metabolic process, and response to stimulus; down-regulated unigenes were related to negative regulation of insulin receptor signaling, germ cell development, oogenesis, spermatid development, and regulation of neuron differentiation. Transcriptome results suggest that the endocrine, reproductive, and neural development of firefly larvae could be impaired by even relatively brief period of ALAN exposure. This report contributes a much-needed molecular perspective to the growing body of research documenting the fitness impacts of ALAN on bioluminescent fireflies.

Apis mellifera plays crucial roles in maintaining the balance of global ecosystems and stability of agricultural systems by helping pollination of flowering plants, including many crops. In recent years, this balance has been disrupted greatly by some pesticides, which results in great losses of honeybees worldwide. Previous studies have found that pesticide-caused memory loss might be one of the major reasons for colony loss. Histone deacetylase inhibitors (HDACis) are chemical compounds that inhibit the activity of histone deacetylases and are known to cause hyperacetylation of histone cores and influence gene expression. In our study, the HDACi sodium butyrate was applied to honeybees as a dietary supplement. The effect of sodium butyrate on the expression profiles of memory-related genes was analysed by quantitative reverse transcription PCR. The results revealed that this HDACi had up-regulation effects on most of the memory-related genes in bees, even in bees treated with imidacloprid. In addition, using the proboscis extension reflex to evaluate olfactory learning in bees, we found that this HDACi boosted the memory formation of bees after impairment owing to imidacloprid exposure. This study investigated the association between gene expression and memory formation from an epigenetic perspective. Additionally, we further demonstrate the possibility of enhancing bee learning using HDACis and provide initial data for future research.

Honey bee larvae exposed to sublethal doses of imidacloprid show behavioural abnormalities as adult insects. Previous studies have demonstrated that this phenomenon originates from abnormal neural development in response to imidacloprid exposure. Here, we further investigated the global gene expression changes in the heads of newly emerged adults and observed that 578 genes showed more than 2-fold changes in gene expression after imidacloprid exposure. This information might aid in understanding the effects of pesticides on the health of pollinators. For example, the genes encoding major royal jelly proteins (MRJPs), a group of multifunctional proteins with significant roles in the sustainable development of bee colonies, were strongly downregulated. These downregulation patterns were further confirmed through analyses using quantitative reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction on the heads of 6-day-old nurse bees. To our knowledge, this study is the first to demonstrate that sublethal doses of imidacloprid affect mrjp expression and likely weaken bee colonies.

In the present study, we found that tryptophan (TRP) and tyrosine (TYR) levels are increased in hemolymph of male Nauphoeta cinerea after social contact with either male or female conspecifics. Hemolymph was collected from individual males before and after the social interactions, and samples were analyzed by HPLC-ECD; analyte identities were confirmed by UPLC/MS. After a male-male first encounter fight, hemolymph TRP and TYR levels were significantly increased in dominants compared with the levels before the encounter. Conversely, TRP and TYR in subordinates were maintained at levels similar to those before the encounter. While after-fight TRP and TYR levels were significantly higher in dominants than subordinates, no significant differences were found in the contestants before the fight. Moreover, contact with an isolated male antenna was sufficient to stimulate attack behavior and increase hemolymph TRP and TYR titers to levels similar to those seen in dominants. After a male-female interaction, two distinct outcomes could be observed. Either hemolymph TRP and TYR levels were increased in successfully mated males, or TRP and TYR levels were unchanged in males that only exhibited premating wing-raising behavior but failed in mating. After contacting the antenna of a socially naive male with an isolated female antenna, three patterns of behavior and related amino acid response were observed: 1) only premating wing-raising behavior with significant increase of TRP and TYR levels, 2) only attack behavior with significant increase of TRP and TYR levels, and 3) mixed wing-raising and attack behaviors with no significant changes in TRP and TYR levels. The present results show a robust response of hemolymph TRP and TYR to social contact. In light of previously characterized responses in pheromone and juvenile hormone levels, these amine responses suggest that the physiological response of N. cinerea to social contact is multi-dimensional.

This paper presents an innovative radar architecture to improve the isolation of the harmonic radar between the transmitter and the receiver. The proposed radar transmits two closely located frequencies to the transponder, and the transponder transmits a response signal at a mixed frequency. Because the frequency of the response signal is different from those of the clutter and leakage signals, the isolation is significantly improved. For a traditional harmonic radar, the leakage signals should be suppressed to a sensitivity lower than −106 dBm to avoid interference. The proposed radar requires only attenuation of leakage signals to a level lower than −8 dBm to avoid low-noise amplifier saturation. Harmonic radar transponders are compatible with the proposed radar system without additional design. This paper also proposes a new method for maintaining the correlation of transmitter and receiver phase noise. Field test results demonstrate that leakage signal interference in the proposed radar is far lower than that in the harmonic radar. The significant improvement in isolation reveals the advantages of applying the frequency mixing concept in the proposed radar.

Pyriproxyfen (PPN) is an insect growth regulator (IGR) that interferes with insect metamorphosis. Although the side effects of PPN on honey bee larval/adult stages have been studied, the risk to honey bee larvae from PPN residue in the environment is still unclear. In this study, we evaluated the impact of PPN on larval honey bees in field colonies by using an in vivo feeding assay. Oral toxicity to adult honey bees were determined. Finally, influence on royal jelly production was also examined. For in vivo feeding assay, the highest observed PPN treatment caused 67% mortality during pupal stage and in the remaining bees, 62.3% showed abnormal eclosion. Reductions in hatching rate, capping rate and adult emergence rate and increased abnormal eclosion rate were found in the colonies fed with 10 ppm PPN syrup. Oral toxicity test revealed that adult honey bees were less susceptible to PPN. Moreover, PPN reduced not only queen cell acceptance rate but also yield of royal jelly in queen cells. These results indicate that PPN has negative impacts on both larval and adult honey bees and royal jelly production, especially under high PPN concentrations. Since PPN is harmful to the development of honey bee larvae and pupae in the natural environment, the issue of honey bee colony contamination by PPN should be addressed.

This paper demonstrates a new transponder for a 9.4/18.8 bee searching harmonic radar. The transponder is designed for light weight so as to mount on a bee more easily. A FPC soft board is used to reduce the weight and the half folded architecture is employed to decrease the loss from the bee’s body. The transponder has a weight of 11 mg and better than -18 dB conversion gain with the power density of 5W/m $^2$.Several field experiments were performed and each bee can fly normally while carrying a transponder.

Urbanization can radically disrupt natural ecosystems through alteration of the sensory environment. Habitat disturbances are predicted to favor behaviorally flexible species capable of adapting to altered environments. When artificial light at night (ALAN) is introduced into urban areas, it has the potential to impede reproduction of local firefly populations by obscuring their bioluminescent courtship signals. Whether individual fireflies can brighten their signals to maintain visibility against an illuminated background remains unknown. In this study, we exposed male Aquatica ficta fireflies to diffused light of varying wavelength and intensity, and recorded their alarm flash signals. When exposed to wavelengths at or below 533 nm, males emitted brighter signals with decreased frequency. This is the first evidence of individual-level light signal plasticity in fireflies. In contrast, long wavelength ambient light (≥ 597 nm) did not affect signal morphology, likely because A. ficta cannot perceive these wavelengths. These results suggest long wavelength lighting is less likely to impact firefly courtship, and its use in place of broad spectrum white lighting could augment firefly conservation efforts. More generally, this study demonstrates benefits of bioluminescent signal plasticity in a “noisy” signaling environment, and sheds light on an important yet understudied consequence of urbanization.

Iridoplasts (modified plastids in adaxial epidermal cells) reported from Begonia were originally hypothesized to cause iridescence, which was broadly accepted for decades. However, several species of Begonia with iridoplasts are not iridescent causing confusion. Here chloroplast ultrastructure was observed in 40 taxa of Begoniaceae to explore the phenomenon of iridescence. However, 22 Begonias and Hillebrandia were found to have iridoplasts, but only nine display visually iridescent blue to blue-green leaves. Unexpectedly, a new type of plastid, a 'minichloroplast,' was found in the abaxial epidermal cells of all taxa, but was present in adaxial epidermal cells only if iridoplasts were absent. Comparative ultrastructural study of iridoplasts and a shading experiment of selected taxa show that a taxon with iridoplasts does not inevitably have visual iridescence, but iridescence is greatly affected by the spacing between thylakoid lamellae (stoma spacing). Thus, we propose instead the name 'lamelloplast' for plastids filled entirely with regular lamellae to avoid prejudging their function. To evaluate photosynthetic performance, chlorophyll fluorescence (F v /F m ) was measured separately from the chloroplasts in the adaxial epidermis and lower leaf tissues by using leaf dermal peels. Lamelloplasts and minichloroplasts have much lower photosynthetic efficiency than mesophyll chloroplasts. Nevertheless, photosynthetic proteins (psbA protein of PSII, RuBisCo and ATPase) were detected in both plastids as well as mesophyll chloroplasts in an immunogold labeling. Spectrometry revealed additional blue to blue-green peaks in visually iridescent leaves. Micro-spectrometry detected a blue peak from single blue spots in adaxial epidermal cells confirming that the color is derived from lamelloplasts. Presence of lamelloplasts or minichloroplasts is species specific and exclusive. High prevalence of lamelloplasts in Begoniaceae, including the basal clade Hillebrandia, highlights a unique evolutionary development. These new findings clarify the association between iridescence and lamelloplasts, and with implications for new directions in the study of plastid morphogenesis.

Bees play a vital role in pollination. This paper focuses on the weighing process of honey. Honey is usually stored at the comb in a hive. Bee farmers brush bees away from the comb and then collect honey, and the collected honey is weighed afterward. However, such a process brings strong negative influences on bees and even leads to the death of bees. This paper therefore presents an Internet of Things-based weight monitoring system which uses weight sensors to measure the weight of honey and simplifies the whole weighing procedure. To verify the system, the weight measured by the system is compared to the weight of standard weights used for calibration by employing a linear regression model. The R2 of the regression model is 0.9788, which suggests that the weighing system is highly reliable and is able to be applied to obtain actual weight of honey. In the future, the weight data of honey can be used to find the relationship between honey production and different ecological parameters, such as bees’ foraging behavior and weather conditions. It is expected that the findings can serve as critical information for honey production improvement., {"references":["M. A. Aizen and L. D. Harder., \"The global stock of domesticated honey bees is growing slower than agricultural demand for pollination.\" Current biology 19, no. 11, 2009, pp. 915–918.","Murphy, Fiona Edwards, et al. \"Development of an heterogeneous wireless sensor network for instrumentation and analysis of beehives.\" Instrumentation and Measurement Technology Conference (I2MTC), 2015 IEEE International. IEEE, 2015","Williams, Geoffrey R., et al. \"Colony collapse disorder in context.\" Bioessays 32.10 (2010): 845-846.","Z. Shiwei and Z. Haitao, \"A review of wireless sensor networks and its applications,\" Automation and Logistics (ICAL), 2012 IEEE International Conference on, IEEE, 2012, pp. 386–389.","Porrini, Claudio, et al. \"Honey bees and bee products as monitors of the environmental contamination.\" Apiacta 38.1 (2003): 63-70.","Bargańska, Żaneta, Marek Ślebioda, and Jacek Namieśnik. \"Honey bees and their products: bioindicators of environmental contamination.\" Critical Reviews in Environmental Science and Technology 46.3 (2016): 235-248.","Zacepins, Aleksejs, et al. \"Temperature sensor network for prediction of possible start of brood rearing by indoor wintered honey bees.\" Carpathian Control Conference (ICCC), 2011 12th International. IEEE, 2011.","McLellan, A. R. 1977. Honeybee colony weight as an index of honey production and nectar flow: a critical evaluation. Journal of Applied Ecology. 14(2): 401‐408.","Michels, M., R. Rojas, and T. Landgraf. 2011. A beehive monitoring system incorporating optical flow as a source of information. Diplomsko delo, Berlin: Freie Universität Berlin, Institut für Informatik.\n[10]\tJ. Hambleton, The Effect of Weather upon the Change in Weight of a Colony of Bees during the Honey Flow, Washington D. C.: United States Department of Agriculture, 1925\n[11]\tDraper, Alejandro, et al. \"Design and implementation of a remote monitoring system to detect contamination in beehives.\" Electrical, Electronics Engineering, Information and Communication Technologies (CHILECON), 2015 CHILEAN Conference on. IEEE, 2015.\n[12]\tFitzgerald, Darren W., et al. \"Design and development of a smart weighing scale for beehive monitoring.\" Signals and Systems Conference (ISSC), 2015 26th Irish. IEEE, 2015.\n[13]\tBieńkowska, M. 2004. Nationwide structure of honey flows in Poland in the years 1995‐2003. Journal of Apicultural Science, 48(2): 111‐123."]}

An automated tool was successfully engineered for monitoring pest populations.Observation data revealed important pest population dynamics.Revealed how endogenous and exogenous factors affect the pest population.12days rhythm and 16days life cycle have been revealed via collected data. The Oriental Fruit Fly (OFF), Bactrocera dorsalis (Hendel), is one of most devastating insect pests that have periodically caused serious damage to fruit farms in Taiwan and many countries in the world. In the past, many studies reported that the population dynamics of OFF was partially correlated to the weather and the historical population development of OFF in the field. By making the best use of modern info-communication technologies (ICTs), long-term pest population data and microclimate variables measured with uniquely fine spatiotemporal resolution are now available to reveal the population dynamics of OFF. An analysis of data over three years using the Vector Auto-Regressive and Moving-Average model with eXogenous variables (VARMAX) was proposed to unravel the regulatory mechanism between the population dynamics of OFF and microclimate factors. In addition, the proposed model provides a 7-day forecast for population dynamics of OFF. The accuracy of 7-day risk level forecasting yielded by the proposed model ranges from 0.87 to 0.97, and the average root-mean squared errors of forecasting the population dynamics fall in the interval between 0.31 and 4.95 per day per farm. The proposed forecasting model can allow authorities to gain a better understanding of the dynamics of OFF and anticipate pest-related problems, so they can make preemptive and effective pest management decisions before the real problems occur.

This study presents the signal processing techniques applied on a 9.4/18.8 GHz harmonic radar, which is used to investigate behaviours of small insects such as bees, beetles and butterflies. It is still a challenge to achieve high accuracy and long detection range simultaneously in a harmonic pulse radar system. The authors combine the spread spectrum technology with the classic pulse harmonic radar system to overcome the dilemma between accuracy and detection range. The processing gain of the pseudo-random code from the spread spectrum technology is used to increase the sensitivity and makes the system able to detect the signal with the weak power strength below the system noise level. To eliminate the effect caused by the local leakage, the signal-processing method provided to cancel the leakage through applying the symmetric property of the autocorrelation function of the pseudo-random code. In the field tests, the proposed system achieves a 60 m detection range within 1 m ranging accuracy by using 1.75 W transmitting power corresponding to 40.430 dBW equivalent-isotropically radiated power (EIRP). It is estimated to extend to at least 900 m detection range by using a 3 kW transmitting power corresponding to 72.771 dBW EIRP.

The western honeybee (Apis mellifera) is essential for the global economy due to its important role in ecosystems and agriculture as a pollinator of numerous flowering plants and crops. Pesticide abuse has greatly impacted honeybees and caused tremendous loss of honeybee colonies worldwide. The reasons for colony loss remain unclear, but involvement of pesticides and pathogen-pesticide interactions has been hypothesized. Histone deacetylase inhibitors (HDACis) inhibit the activity of histone acetylase, which causes the hyperacetylation of histone cores and influences gene expression. In this study, sodium butyrate, an HDACi, was used as a dietary supplement for honeybees; after treatment, gene expression profiles were analyzed using quantitative PCR. The results showed that sodium butyrate up-regulated genes involved in anti-pathogen and detoxification pathways. The bioassay results showed that honeybees treated with sodium butyrate were more tolerant to imidacloprid. Additionally, sodium butyrate strengthened the immune response of honeybees to invasions of Nosema ceranae and viral infections. We also performed a bioassay in which honeybees were exposed to pesticides and pathogens. Our results provide additional data regarding the mechanism by which honeybees react to stress and the potential application of HDACis in beekeeping.

This paper presents a 9.4/18.8-GHz harmonic radar to investigate the behavior of bees with colony collapse disorder. The challenges of using harmonic radar for bee searching include the requirements of high range accuracy and high sensitivity. A new harmonic radar using the pseudorandom code positioning technique to simultaneously achieve high range accuracy and high sensitivity is proposed. This study also proposes a new method to cancel the local leakage to further improve sensitivity. To realize the transponder, a compact antenna is designed using the topology characteristics of the composite right/left-handed transmission-line concept. The measured sensitivity of the transceiver is -120 dBm, which is 27 dB lower than the noise level. Field testing results demonstrate a 60-m detection range within 1-m distance error with 1.75-W transmitting power. The significant improvement of the sensitivity and the range accuracy reveal the advantages of applying the code-positioning technique to the harmonic radar.

This paper presents the recently research of the harmonic radar at National Taiwan University and National Chung Cheng University. The topic includes the radar base, portable radar, and the transponder. In the radar base, high sensitivity radar using the correlation of PRN code is developed. To isolate the transmitter and the receiver, a cancellation technique of the local leakage signal is investigated. In the portable radar, an analog correlator network is designed so that the high speed oscilloscope can be replaced by the portable monitor. This portable radar can search a transponder at a distance of 1 m. The transponder design needs to minimize the loss of bee's body, and both ground plane shieling and the virtual ground plane are used to reduce the loss of the body. The reduction of the influence by the bee's body for the transponder using either method is 3–4 dB.

Honey bees have the ability to detect the Earth’s magnetic field and the suspected magnetoreceptors are the iron granules in the abdomens of the bees. To identify the sensing route of honey bee magnetoreception, we conducted a classical conditioning experiment in which the responses of the proboscis extension reflex (PER) were monitored. Honey bees were successfully trained to associate the magnetic stimulus with a sucrose reward after two days of training. When the neural connection of the ventral nerve cord (VNC) between the abdomen and the thorax was cut, the honey bees no longer associated the magnetic stimulus with the sucrose reward but still responded to an olfactory PER task. The neural responses elicited in response to the change of magnetic field were also recorded at the VNC. Our results suggest that the honey bee is a new model animal for the investigation of magnetite-based magnetoreception.

Butterfly eyes are furnished with a variety of photoreceptors of different spectral sensitivities often in species-specific manner. We have conducted an extensive comparative study to address the question of how their spectrally complex retinas evolved. Here we investigated the structure and function of the eye of the common bluebottle butterfly (Graphium sarpedon), using electrophysiological, anatomical and molecular approaches. Intracellular electrophysiology revealed that the eye contains photoreceptors of fifteen distinct spectral sensitivities. These can be divided into six spectral receptor classes: ultraviolet- (UV), violet- (V), blue- (B), blue-green- (BG), green- (G), and red- (R) sensitive. The B, G and R classes respectively contain three, four and five subclasses. Fifteen is the record number of spectral receptors so far reported in a single insect eye. We localized these receptors by injecting dye into individual photoreceptors after recording their spectral sensitivities. We thus found that four of them are confined to the dorsal region, eight to the ventral, and three exist throughout the eye; the ventral eye region is spectrally richer than the dorsal region. We also identified mRNAs encoding visual pigment opsins of one ultraviolet, one blue and three long wavelength-absorbing types. Localization of these mRNAs by in situ hybridization revealed that the dorsal photoreceptors each express a single opsin mRNA, but more than half of the ventral photoreceptors coexpress two or three L opsin mRNAs. This expression pattern well explains the spectral organization of the Graphium compound eye.

Improving fruit farm profitability through integrated pest management (IPM) programs is always an important issue to modern agriculture systems. In order to enhance IPM programs against Bactrocera dorsalis, an automatic infield monitoring system is required to efficiently capture long-term and up-to-the-minute environmental fluctuations in a fruit farm. In this study, a remote agro-ecological monitoring system built upon wireless sensor networks has been developed to provide precision agriculture (PA) services with large-scale, long-distance, long-term, scalable, and real-time infield data collection capabilities. Historical data with spatial information is available through a web-based decision support program built upon a database. Pest population forecast results are also provided so that farmers and government officials would be able to accurately respond to infield variations. Compared with the previous version of the system, various useful functions have been added into the system, and its accuracy has been improved when measuring different parameters in the field. The system could provide a valuable framework for farmers and pest control officials to analyze the relations between population dynamics of the fruit fly and meteorological events. Based on the analysis, a better insect pest risk assessment and accurate decision-making strategy can be made as an aid to PA against B. dorsalis.

This study aimed to develop an imaging system for monitoring and analyzing the in-and-out activity of honey bees as they pass through the entrance of a beehive. As such, the daily in-and-out activity of a beehive could be automatically recorded with minimum interference with the regular behavior of the bees. The components of the imaging system include: (1) an infrared LED light source; (2) an infrared CCD camera and a personal computer for image acquisition and processing; and (3) an acrylic passageway to temporarily confine the bees within the image-capturing range of the camera. In operation, this imaging system was affixed to the outside of a beehive at the entry/exit point. To identify each forager of bee workers individually, circular character-encoding tags were attached to the dorsum of the bees' thoraxes. To locate individual honey bees in a video frame, a circular Hough transform was used to detect the presence of the circular tags. A black positioning dot on the tag was used to identify the orientation of the characters in order to facilitate the reading of the symbols on the circular tag. The extracted character symbols were further segmented and a support vector machine (SVM) classifier was deployed to recognize the characters and identify the individual honey bee. The system developed in this study was used in experimentation to identify each of the tagged bees and to record the timing of the entries and exits. The character symbol recognition and identification accuracy rates of the system were about 98% and 86%, respectively. Based on the in-and-out records, daily foraging behavior of honey bees were analyzed and presented. These experimental results demonstrate that this imaging system is feasible and can be used as an efficient tool to study honey bee behavior.

A recent study by Peng and Yang in Scientific Reports using confocal-microscopy based automated quantification of anti-synapsin labeled microglomeruli in the mushroom bodies of honeybee brains reports potentially incorrect numbers of microglomerular densities. Whereas several previous studies using visually supervised or automated counts from confocal images and analyses of serial 3D electron-microscopy data reported consistent numbers of synaptic complexes per volume, Peng and Yang revealed extremely low numbers differing by a factor of 18 or more from those obtained in visually supervised counts, and by a factor 22–180 from numbers in two other studies using automated counts. This extreme discrepancy is especially disturbing as close comparison of raw confocal images of anti-synapsin labeled whole-mount brain preparations are highly similar across these studies. We conclude that these discrepancies may reside in potential misapplication of confocal imaging followed by erroneous use of automated image analysis software. Consequently, the reported microglomerular densities during maturation and after manipulation by insecticides require validation by application of appropriate confocal imaging methods and analyses tools that rely on skilled observers. We suggest several improvements towards more reliable or standardized automated or semi-automated synapse counts in whole mount preparations of insect brains.

Understanding pest population dynamics is an essential part of pest management programs, but the examination of field pest populations faces many logistical difficulties. Consequently, potentially useful characteristics of pest ecology that can be utilized in the development of pest control strategies are yet to be discovered. In this study, we used an automated pest monitoring system to study a population of the oriental fruit fly and revealed its intriguing population dynamics in the field. The system automatically counts the number of flies captured by traps, and the real-time data are accessible anywhere using the Internet. Data from two time periods (May–June and July–August) were analyzed. Autocorrelation analysis indicated that there was a statistically significant population cycle in May and June, but the population was stationary in July and August. Partial rate correlation analysis and an associated functional analysis revealed the existence of delayed density-dependence that differed between the two periods. These results suggest that the mechanism of population dynamics may change possibly within a short time frame. These patterns were revealed because of the detailed data that were made available by the monitoring system and were unknown prior to the study. The automated monitoring system will be highly valuable for the advancement of pest monitoring and pest management programs.

Highlights? A new automatic and effective fruit quarantine system is presented. ? Guava, pitaya, pear, apple, peach, mango and Sunkist are used for experiments. ? Optimal settings for X-ray tube are presented. This paper presents a new automatic and effective quarantine system for detecting pest infestation sites in agricultural products, e.g. fruits. This work integrated mechanical design, mechatronics instrumentation, X-ray and charge-coupled device (CCD) image acquisition devices, LabVIEW-based analysis and control software, and image diagnosis algorithms into the automatic X-ray quarantine scanner system. Based on the LabVIEW development platform, a friendly graphical user interface (GUI) was designed for assisting the operations of quarantine scanner system. To enhance the accuracy and efficiency of pest quarantine process, a control scheme for performing start-up procedure of the system, parameter setting and calibration of the X-ray source and line-scan sensor, and automatic inspection for pest were developed. A novel pest infestation detector consisted of image processing algorithms were also proposed to aid the operator in identifying possibly infested fruits. The image processing procedures include contrast enhancement, median filtering, mathematical morphology operators, and adaptive thresholding by statistical z-test for identifying the infested sites of fruit on an X-ray image. Experimental results show that the X-ray quarantine scanner and pest infestation detector are able to locate the infested sites with highly successful rate up to 94% on the 4th day after eggs implanted. Furthermore, both intact and egg-implanted fruits were used to evaluate the sensitivity, specificity, accuracy, and precision of the proposed system. The evaluation results are respectively 96.8%, 98.6%, 97.7%, and 98.7%, which are significantly better than traditional visual inspection.