Publications
NIBIOs employees contribute to several hundred scientific articles and research reports every year. You can browse or search in our collection which contains references and links to these publications as well as other research and dissemination activities. The collection is continously updated with new and historical material.
2018
Abstract
No abstract has been registered
Authors
Bjørn ØklandAbstract
No abstract has been registered
Authors
Anna Maria Vettraino Alberto Santini Christo Nikolov Jean-Claude Grégoire Rumen Tomov Andrei Orlinski Tiit Maaten Halldors Sverrisson Bjørn Økland René EschenAbstract
The sentinel plants concept responds to the need for new strategies to identify and study potential plant pests (including pathogens) and assess associated risks before their introduction to other continents. However, even if very promising, this tool is not yet implemented on a large scale, partially because it requires adequate planning, long-term funding, strong local links and reliable collaborators. In addition, a wider implementation of sentinel plantations and sentinel nurseries requires knowledge of regulations and procedures regarding the possibilities for their establishment in different countries. In order to achieve this objective, a questionnaire survey was conducted in 2016, to which more than 40 countries around the world responded. The results reveal that many countries have few regulations specifically concerning the import of propagation material, making import of this relatively low-risk material easier than the import of larger living plants that may have been more exposed to pests in the exporting country. The planting of alien woody plants in the environment is possible for scientific purposes in most countries as exemption from general phytosanitary import requirements, but the import and planting of alien plant species may be regulated by different government departments. We will present the outcomes of this study, which will be useful to facilitate the selection of locations for future sentinel plants and may provide guidance on the rules for import of plant propagation material for the establishment of sentinel plants and sentinel nurseries in different countries.
Authors
Bjørn ØklandAbstract
No abstract has been registered
Authors
Gregor Kalinkat, Tea Ammunet Madeleine Barton Andrea Battisti Sanford D. Eigenbrode Jane Uhd Jepsen Philipp Lehmann Seppo Neuvonen Pekka Niemelä Bjørn Økland John s. Terblanche Christer BjörkmanAbstract
Recently, Deutsch and colleagues(1) projected future increases in yield losses to insect pests of the three globally most important staple crops under different climate change scenarios. Their results are based on model simulations parameterized with thermal sensitivity analyses of population growth and metabolic rates from a geographically and functionally diverse set of insect species taken from an earlier study(2). A subset of the original data compilation was then used to estimate the direct impact of warming on insect fitness across latitudes(3). More precisely, the derived thermal-dependence of fitness for globally distributed terrestrial insect species was integrated with projected geographic distribution of climate change for the next century (3). These models were then deployed in the new study investigating potential yield losses in three specific crops(1). We submit that Deutsch and colleagues rely on inadequate empirical data for their model parameterization to estimate pest-related crop losses. Strikingly, their source data did not include major pest taxa of the focal staple crops and were not restricted to herbivores despite that temperature-dependence of metabolic and performance responses are known to vary substantially among trophic levels and functional groups(4,5). Hence, the inferences drawn by Deutsch and colleagues(1) may be unreliable. Mitigating potential climate change responses of pest organisms jeopardizing future food security can only be successful if they are based on high-quality information relevant to the crop system in question(6). References 1. C. A. Deutsch et al., Science. 361, 916–919 (2018). 2. M. R. Frazier, R. B. Huey, D. Berrigan, Am. Nat. 168, 512–520 (2006). 3. C. A. Deutsch et al., Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. 105, 6668–6672 (2008). 4. A. I. Dell, S. Pawar, V. M. Savage, Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. 108, 10591–10596 (2011). 5. A. I. Dell, S. Pawar, V. M. Savage, J. Anim. Ecol. 83, 70–84 (2014). 6. P. Lehmann et al., bioRxiv (2018), doi:10.1101/425488.
Authors
Juraj Galko Bjørn Økland Troy Kimoto Slavomír Rell Milan Zúbrik Andrej Kunca Jozef Vakula Andrej Gubka Christo NikolovAbstract
A warmer climate may potentially have a strong effect on the health status of European oak forests by weakening oak trees and facilitating mass reproduction of wood boring insects. We did a laboratory experiment in Slovakia to study the response of major pest beetles of oak and their parasitoids to different temperature regimes as background for predicting climatic effects and improving management tools of European oak forests. With higher temperatures the most important oak pest Scolytus intricatus emerged much earlier, which indicate that completion of a second generation and increased damage further north in European oak forests may be possible. Lower temperatures gave longer larval galleries and more offspring per parents but still lower beetle production due to semivoltine life cycle. For buprestids and longhorn beetles warmer temperatures resulted in more emerging offspring and a shift towards earlier emergence in the same season, but no emergence in the first season indicated that a change to univoltine populations is not likely. Reduced development success of parasitoids at the highest temperatures (25/30 °C) indicates a loss of population regulation for pest beetle populations. A warmer climate may lead to invasion of other population-regulating parasitoids, but also new serious pest may invade. With expected temperature increases it is recommended to use trap trees both in April and in June, and trap trees should be removed within 2 months instead 1 year as described in the current standard.
Authors
Bjørn ØklandAbstract
No abstract has been registered
Abstract
No abstract has been registered
Abstract
Olfaction is the most important sensory mechanism by which many insects interact with their environment and a wind tunnel is an excellent tool to study insect chemical ecology. Insects can locate point sources in a three-dimensional environment through the sensory interaction and sophisticated behavior. The quantification of this behavior is a key element in the development of new tools for pest control and decision support. A wind tunnel with a suitable flight section with laminar air flow, visual cues for in-flight feedback and a variety of options for the application of odors can be used to measure complex behaviour which subsequently may allow the identification of attractive or repellent odors, insect flight characteristics, visual-odor interactions and interactions between attractants and odors lingering as background odors in the environment. A wind tunnel holds the advantage of studying the odor mediated behavioural repertoire of an insect in a laboratory setting. Behavioural measures in a controlled setting provide the link between the insect physiology and field application. A wind tunnel must be a flexible tool and should easily support the changes to setup and hardware to fit different research questions. The major disadvantage to the wind tunnel setup described here, is the clean odor background which necessitates special attention when developing a synthetic volatile blend for field application.
Abstract
No abstract has been registered