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Simple Summary: The Argentine ant, Linepithema humile (Mayr), was introduced into the United States from South America in the late 1800s. Since its establishment in California and the southeastern U.S., it has become an agricultural pest by interfering with citrus production in California, but it is widely known in most of its range as a major nuisance pest. It commonly establishes nest sites in mulch and leaf litter, where colonies may be populated by hundreds of thousands of worker ants (or more) with a large home range. When searching for food, ants may discover and recruit to sweet foods inside of structures. To alleviate ant pest problems, the structural pest control industry may incorporate EPA-approved baits and residual products that are designed to reduce the ant population. Homeowners experiencing nuisance pests are often motivated to solve their own problem, and they may be susceptible to outlandish, fact-free claims of do-it-yourself "secret" solutions that "they don't want you to know about". In this study, we evaluated several of these recommendations. In two trials designed to evaluate a product's ability to deter Argentine ants from a preferred nest site, we evaluated several common home remedies, namely the use of tansy plant leaves, cucumber peels, and soybean extract. None of these home remedies deterred ants from a preferred harborage. Fresh leaves from rosemary and spearmint plants, however, did deter ants, as do many commercially available essential oils. In two laboratory trials, natural products, including freshly picked leaves from spearmint, rosemary, and tansy plants, a water extract from soybean plants, peels from a common cucumber, and 1% peppermint oil in hexane, were placed in a moist harborage preferred by Argentine ants, Linepithema humile (Mayr), and the number of ants entering the harborage after two and four hours was counted. None of the recommended home remedies (tansy, cucumber, or soybean extract) deterred ants from an attractive, moist harborage in either trial, even when the quantity of these treatments was increased 4- to 10-fold. Freshly picked leaves from rosemary and spearmint plants deterred ants from harboring, and the 1% peppermint oil was the most deterrent of all treatments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The obituaries of six wildlife professionals are presented. Biographical details are presented for biologist Lloyd Swift, conservationist Forrest Carpenter, author Robert Lochmiller, scientist Michael Gratson, ecologist Don Hayne and minister Joe Stevens.

Although genotypic and environmental contributions to yield and fiber quality have been studied extensively in cotton for decades, the near-constant release of commercially available genotypes necessitates re-evaluation for specific cotton production regions. Consequently, lint yield, lint percent, fiber length, fiber strength, fiber micronaire, and uniformity index were evaluated for seven commercially available cotton cultivars across 33 yield environments in on-farm trials throughout Georgia. The following were quantified: the percentage of variability in each response variable accounted for by genotype and environment, trait stability for each cultivar across all yield environments, and genotypic and environmental correlations between all parameters of interest. Environment was the dominant factor governing lint yield (96.1% environment, 1.2% genotype), fiber length (80.6% environment, 5.1% genotype), strength (47% environment, 27.7% genotype), micronaire (63.8% environment, 9.9% genotype), and uniformity (69.8% environment, 6.5% genotype). In contrast, lint percentage was impacted more by genotype (51.5%) than by environment (38.8%). 'PHY 565 WRF' was identified as the most stable cultivar across all yield environments for all agronomic and fiber quality traits examined. Environmental correlations showed that fiber length, strength, and uniformity were all positively correlated with yield. These findings suggest that any improvements in the yield environment brought about through improved production practices or favorable environmental conditions will be conducive to improving fiber quality in cotton. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Argentine ant, Linepithema humile, is an invasive nuisance, agricultural, and ecological pest from South America. In the United States, its primary distribution is in California and the Southeast. The structural pest control industry responds to property owner complaints when this ant's populations become problematic and a persistent nuisance. Actions taken to control Argentine ants in the urban and suburban environment are typically complaint-driven, and often involve the application of insecticide sprays applied to the outdoor environment by professional pest managers. In California, and elsewhere, spray treatments of various residual insecticides by property owners and pest management professionals has resulted in significant runoff and in subsequent surface water contamination. As a result, an immediate need exists to develop alternative methods of ant control targeted at reducing environmental contamination. The purpose of this study was to investigate the potential for the development of an alternative method of toxicant delivery focused on the Argentine ant's behavior modifying cuticular chemistry. In short, methanol and hexane washes of Argentine ant pupae applied to paper dummies were handled significantly more by worker ants than the paper dummies that did not contain the solvent extracts. Additionally, paper wicks soaked in a methylene chloride wash from Argentine ant cadavers, air dried, and then treated with fipronil, were removed by worker ants and placed on a midden pile at the same rate (≈86% to 99% removal at 1 h) as untreated and fipronil-treated ant cadavers. The paper wicks that did not contain the methylene chloride extract were ignored by the worker ants. After three days, the mortality of the ants exposed to the fipronil-treated wicks or the ant cadavers were dose-related. In conclusion, our study suggests that there is potential for the use of ant semiochemicals for the delivery of acute toxicants. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]