The Phantom Menace: latest findings on effector biology in the rice blast fungus.

is a hemibiotrophic fungus responsible for the economically devastating and recalcitrant rice blast disease. However, the blast fungus is not only restricted to rice plants as it can also infect wheat, millet, and other crops. Despite previous outstanding discoveries aimed to understand and control the disease, the fungus remains one of the most important pathogens that threatens global food security.

Prey species increase activity in refugia free of terrestrial predators.

The decline of terrestrial predator populations across the globe is altering top-down pressures that drive predator-prey interactions. However, a knowledge gap remains in understanding how removing terrestrial predators affects prey behavior. Using a bifactorial playback experiment, we exposed fox squirrels to predator (red-tailed hawks, coyotes, dogs) and non-predator control (Carolina wren) calls inside terrestrial predator exclosures, accessible to avian predators, and in control areas subject to ambient predation risk.

A comparison of animal color measurements using a commercially available digital color sensor and photograph analysis.

An animal's pelage, feather, or skin color can serve a variety of functions, so it is important to have multiple standardized methods for measuring color. One of the most common and reliable methods for measuring animal coloration is the use of standardized digital photographs of animals. New technology in the form of a commercially available handheld digital color sensor could provide an alternative to photography-based animal color measurements.

Molting drives mortality in foraging populations of Formosan subterranean termites (Isoptera: Rhinotermitidae) baited with a chitin synthesis inhibitor, noviflumuron.

Background: The lethal time of a chitin synthesis inhibitor (CSI)-baited colony of Coptotermes formosanus Shiraki largely depends on the time taken for workers to molt after consuming a lethal dose. Given that termite molting biology can regulate the time to elimination of a baited termite colony, the objective of this study was to determine how the fasting period (an important element of the worker molting cycle) and acquisition of the lethal dose can impact the total elimination period for a colony.

Results: Noviflumuron eliminated the foraging population over a 30 m-long foraging arena within 9 weeks.