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Lycorma delicatula (White) (Hemiptera: Fulgoridae), spotted lanternfly (SLF), is an invasive pest that feeds and oviposits on numerous woody and herbaceous plants important to agricultural, forest, ornamental, and nursery industries. Describing and understanding SLF movements is key to implementing surveillance and control strategies for this pest and projecting population spread. We used radio telemetry (RT) and harmonic radar (HR) to track the movements of individual SLF at field sites in eastern Pennsylvania and northwestern New Jersey. SLF equipped with HR or RT tags were tracked in 2019 and 2020 from adult emergence until oviposition time, and their movements are described. Although the bulkier RT tags disproportionately affected the distance traveled by males, which are smaller than females, both males and females were more likely to be lost due to signal attenuation when affixed with the lighter-weight HR tags. Females were tracked moving longer distances than males, with maximum distances of 434 m by a single female and 57 m by a single male. A significant positive relationship was found between their height in trees and the distance of subsequent movement. Adult SLF were found in trees predominantly at heights between 6-9 m high. For the fraction of SLF found at eye level, males, but not females, significantly moved above eye level in the weeks prior to mating, likely resulting in the observed sex ratio shift that defines the Early-2 stage. During mating time, tracked SLF were significantly higher than 8 m and oriented to trees where tight aggregations of SLF were present. This orientation towards tight aggregations started when mating began and peaked in the following 2.5 weeks for males in Late-1 and the beginning of Late-2 (after oviposition began), whereas females started this orientation behavior a half-week after males, and this activity peaked for two weeks. Male and female SLF adults exhibited slight differences in host preference, and strong preferences for wild grape, black walnut, sweet birch, and tree-of-heaven were observed. The HR-tagged nymphs moved up to 27.6 m over a five-day period in a cornfield. Nitinol wire HR tags performed better than Wollaston process or tungsten wire tags. SLF movement parameters in the field are described.

The stress-related neuropeptide pituitary adenylate cyclase-activating polypeptide (PACAP) is implicated in neuromodulation of learning and memory. PACAP can alter synaptic plasticity and has direct actions on neurons in the amygdala and hippocampus that could contribute to its acute and persistent effects on the consolidation and expression of conditioned fear. We recently demonstrated that intracerebroventricular (ICV) infusion of PACAP prior to fear conditioning (FC) results in initial amnestic-like effects followed by hyper-expression of conditioned freezing with repeated testing, and analyses of immediate-early gene c-Fos expression suggested that the central nucleus of the amygdala (CeA), but not the lateral/basolateral amygdala (LA/BLA) or hippocampus, are involved in these PACAP effects. Here, we extend that work by examining the expression of the synaptic plasticity marker activity-regulated cytoskeleton-associated protein (Arc/Arg 3.1) after PACAP administration and FC. Male Sprague-Dawley rats were implanted with cannula for ICV infusion of PACAP-38 (1.5 µg) or vehicle followed by FC and tests for conditioned freezing. One hour after FC, Arc protein expression was significantly elevated in the CeA and bed nucleus of the stria terminalis (BNST), interconnected structures that are key elements of the extended amygdala, in rats that received the combination of PACAP + FC. In contrast, Arc expression within the subdivisions of the hippocampus, or the LA/BLA, were unchanged. A subpopulation of Arc-positive cells in both the CeA and BNST also express PKCdelta, an intracellular marker that has been used to identify microcircuits that gate conditioned fear in the CeA. Consistent with our previous findings, on the following day conditioned freezing behavior was reduced in rats that had been given the combination of PACAP + FC-an amnestic-like effect-and Arc expression levels had returned to baseline. Given the established role of Arc in modifying synaptic plasticity and memory formation, our findings suggest that PACAP-induced overexpression of Arc following fear conditioning may disrupt neuroplastic changes within populations of CeA and BNST neurons normally responsible for encoding fear-related cues that, in this case, results in altered fear memory consolidation. Hence, PACAP systems may represent an axis on which stress and experience-driven neurotransmission converge to alter emotional memory, and mediate pathologies that are characteristic of psychiatric illnesses such as post-traumatic stress disorder., (Copyright © 2018 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)

Background and Objectives: Extreme cardiovascular reactions to psychological stress have been associated with traumatic life experiences. Previous studies have focused on the occurrence or frequency of abuse rather than type of abuse. We examined how occurrence, frequency, and the type of abuse history are related to cardiovascular reactivity (CVR) to acute psychological stress., Design: The study consisted of between group and continuous analyses to examine the association between occurrence, type, and frequency of abuse with cardiovascular reactions to acute psychological stress., Methods: Data from 64 participants were collected. Heart rate, systolic blood pressure, and diastolic blood pressure were measured at baseline and during a standard mental arithmetic stress task., Results: Individuals who experienced abuse showed diminished CVR to acute psychological stress; this was driven specifically by the history of sexual abuse. Frequency of abuse did not relate to stress reactions., Conclusions: These findings accord with previous work suggesting a relationship between traumatic life experience and hypoarousal in physiological reactivity and extend previous findings by suggesting the relationship may be driven by sexual abuse.