This study investigated biological activity of chloroform extract of dry Lantana camara 'Mozelle' leaves against the eastern subterranean termite, Reticulitermes flavipes (Kollar), an important structural pest. Repellent activity was assessed using a paper-disc choice test and a sand arena choice test. Antifeedant and toxic properties were assessed using a no-choice paper test and a topical application method. In the choice tests, significantly fewer termites made contact with treated paper-discs at test concentrations > or = 0.016 mg/cm2 (equivalent to 0.0023 wt:wt) or tunneled into treated sand at test concentrations > or = 0.125 mg/g, compared with control. In the no-choice tests, termite feeding activity was significantly reduced and termite mortality was greatly increased in treatments than control. Exposure to filter paper treated at 0.212 and 0.106 mg/cm2 (equivalent to 0.03 and 0.015 wt:wt) resulted in > 90% mortality and 78% reduction in feeding, and approximately 52% mortality and 40% reduction in feeding, respectively. Top-dorsal application led to > 60% mortality at 4 microg/termite. This study showed that the chloroform leaf extract of L. camara had excellent repellent and moderate toxic and antifeedant activities.

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Praying mantises are distributed all over the world. Though some Mantodea mitogenomes have been reported, an evolutionary genomic and phylogenetic analysis study lacks the latest taxonomic system. In the present study, four new mitogenomes were sequenced and annotated. Deroplatys truncate, D. lobate, Amorphoscelis chinensis and Macromantis sp. belong to Deroplatyidae, Amorphoscelidae and Photinaidae family, respectively. Our results indicated that the ATP8 gene may be lost in D. truncate and D. lobata mt genome, and four tRNA genes have not been found in D. truncate, D. lobata and Macromantis sp. A dN/dS pair analysis was conducted and it was found that all genes have evolved under purifying selection. Furthermore, we tested the phylogenetic relationships between the eight families of the Mantodea, including 35 species of praying Mantis. Based on the complete mitochondrial genome data, it was also suggested as sister to Deroplatyidae + Mantidae, Metallyticus sp., the only representative of Metallyticidae, is sister to the remaining mantises. Our results support the taxonomic system of Schwarz and Roy and are consistent with previous studies.

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ABSTRACT:The study of humidity is important for better understanding the past climatic variations. However, there have been few long-term humidity reconstructions using tree-ring widths worldwide. Here, we present a June-September mean relative humidity (MRH 69 ) reconstruction from AD 1837 to 2011 using Chinese pine trees (Pinus tabulaeformis Carr.) from the Yiwulü Mountain region in northeastern China. The reconstruction explained 39.8% of the instrumental variance during the calibration period. We found that precipitation only influenced the MRH 69 on an annual scale (high frequency), but the mean maximum temperature (MMT) impacted the MRH 69 both on an annual scale (high frequency) and decadal time scale (low frequency). The MRH 69 reconstruction showed a consistently increasing trend from AD 1881 to 1990, after which it diminished sharply. More high humidity years occurred after the 1960s and more low humidity years occurred before the 1960s. In the study area, MRH 69 decreased along with global warming after the 1980s. On the decadal scale, there were five high-value MRH 69 intervals: 1842-1850, 1865-1871, 1898-1902, 1823-1927 and 1932-1997; there were five low-value intervals: 1851-1864, 1872-1897, 1903-1922, 1928-1931 and 1998-2006. In addition, the MRH 69 reconstruction showed the large-scale representativeness of sea-land coupling. On the decadal scale, our MRH 69 reconstruction varied synchronously with the Arctic Oscillation index (AOI), suggesting that the AOI might be linked with MRH 69 in the Yiwulü Mountain region. Historical documents and meteorological data indicate that flooding (or drought) often occurred in the years with higher (or lower) humidity compared with the moving average values of the mean relative humidity (MRH).