Hunting billbug (Coleoptera: Curculionidae) life cycle and damaging life stage in North Carolina, with notes on other billbug species abundance.

In the southeastern United States, hunting billbug, Sphenophorus venatus vestitus Chittenden, adults are often observed in turfgrass, but our knowledge of their biology and ecology is limited. Field surveys and experiments were conducted to determine the species composition, life cycle, damaging life stage, and distribution of billbugs within the soil profile in turfgrass in North Carolina. Linear pitfall trapping revealed six species of billbug, with the hunting billbug making up 99.

Species composition and seasonal occurrence of Phyllophaga (Coleoptera: Scarabaeidae) infesting intensely managed Bermudagrass in Oklahoma.

Larvae of Phyllophaga spp. (Coleoptera: Scarabaeidae) are important turfgrass pests in many regions of the United States. However, not all of the species associated with turfgrass are known, including species most likely to be of economic concern in Oklahoma turfgrasses, especially Bermuda grass.

The amplification of oligonucleotide themes in the evolution of the myc protooncogene family.

The evolutionary past of intragenic repeats in protein-coding exons of c-, N-, L-, and s-myc-protooncogene subfamilies was elucidated. Apparently these genes evolved by succession of distinct unit events rather than by a steady flow of random point mutations. An evolutionary event probably involved a duplication of the whole gene, which was followed by amplification of progressively shorter oligonucleotide themes and motifs.

Production of v-Myb and c-Myb in insect cells infected with recombinant baculoviruses.

Recombinant baculoviruses expressing the v-myb and c-myb genes in infected insect cells were constructed. The electrophoretic mobilities of their immunoreactive products were the same as those of the authentic Myb proteins from chicken cells. The system provides a convenient source of relatively large amounts of v-Myb or c-Myb for in vitro binding studies.

Correlation of physical maps and some genetic functions in the genomes of the kappa-theta phage family of Bacillus licheniformis.

Natural recombinant genomes between several, phenotypically distinct forms of phages kappa and theta were isolated and characterized by DNA restriction fragment mapping and electron microscopic heteroduplex analysis. The phenotypes of the recombinants were correlated with the physical maps of the genomes, and several genetic functions were therefore defined and mapped. All genes necessary for the assembly of infectious virus particles map in a contiguous tract of DNA comprising about 20 kb, or nearly one third of the genome length.