Cryptic community structure and metabolic interactions among the heritable facultative symbionts of the pea aphid.

Most insects harbour influential, yet non-essential heritable microbes in their hemocoel. Communities of these symbionts exhibit low diversity. But their frequent multi-species nature raises intriguing questions on roles for symbiont-symbiont synergies in host adaptation, and on the stability of the symbiont communities, themselves.

Nosocomial or not? A combined epidemiological and genomic investigation to understand hospital-acquired COVID-19 infection on an elderly care ward.

Background: COVID-19 has the potential to cause outbreaks in hospitals. Given the comorbid and elderly cohort of patients hospitalized, hospital-acquired COVID-19 infection is often fatal. Pathogen genome sequencing is becoming increasingly important in infection prevention and control (IPC).

The effect of lamb carcase weight and GR depth on the production of value-added cuts - A short communication.

Times for the progressive breakdown of 95 lamb carcases were recorded to determine the impact of carcase weight and GR tissue depth on the time and therefore cost to produce value added retail cuts. Further analysis also assessed the potential to use these carcase traits as predictors of fabrication times. Regression modeling demonstrated there was a limited ability to predict the difference in time to fabricate mid value-added (R=0.

A GR/Impedance probe proves unsuitable for measuring GR depth in Australian lamb carcases.

Multiple studies were conducted at 3 abattoirs to determine the potential of a dual function GR/Impedance probe to measure GR soft- tissue depth (depth at the 12th rib, 110mm from the mid line of the carcase) of typical lamb carcases processed in Australia. Lamb carcases (1016) were measured approximately 25min post slaughter with the probe and a GR knife as the most commonly used measurement. Modelling indicated that variation in the measurement using the probe compared to the measurement using the knife occurred with increasing carcase weight and fatness as well as between different abattoirs.

Effects of Temperature and Photoperiod on the Reproductive Biology and Diapause of Oobius agrili (Hymenoptera: Encyrtidae), an Egg Parasitoid of Emerald Ash Borer (Coleoptera: Buprestidae).

Oobius agrili Zhang and Huang (Hymenoptera: Encyrtidae) is a solitary egg parasitoid of the invasive emerald ash borer, Agrilus planipennis Fairmaire (Coleoptera: Buprestidae), and has been introduced to the United States for classical biological control. We characterized the weekly survivorship, fecundity, and diapause patterns of both diapaused and nondiapaused populations of O. agrili under four different temperature-photophase combinations: 30°C (warm) and 20°C (cold) temperatures with both long-day (16 h) and short-day (8 h) photophase.