Haematite in Lateritic Soils Aids Groundwater Disinfection

Microbiologically contaminated water severely impacts public health in low-income countries, where treated water supplies are often inaccessible to much of the population. Groundwater represents a water source that commonly has better microbiological quality than surface water. A 2-month intensive flow and quality monitoring programme of a spring in a densely settled, unsewered parish of Kampala, Uganda, revealed the persistent presence of high chloride and nitrate concentrations that reflect intense loading of sewage in the spring??s catchment. Conversely, thermotolerant coliform bacteria counts in spring water samples remained very low outside of periods of intense rainfall. Laboratory investigations of mechanisms responsible for this behavior, achieved by injecting a pulse of H40/1 bacteriophage tracer into a column packed with locally derived granular laterite, resulted in near-total tracer adsorption. X-ray diffraction (XRD) analysis showed the laterite to consist predominantly of quartz and kaolinite, with minor amounts (<5%) of haematite. Batch studies comparing laterite adsorption capacity with a soil having comparable mineralogy, but with amorphous iron oxide rather than haematite, showed the laterite to have a significantly greater capacity to adsorb bacteriophage. Batch study results using pure haematite confirmed that its occurrence in laterite contributes substantially to micro-organism attenuation observed and serves to protect underlying groundwater.     

Insecticide resistance in house flies from the United States: Resistance levels and frequency of pyrethroid resistance alleles

Although insecticide resistance is a widespread problem for most insect pests, frequently the assessment of resistance occurs over a limited geographic range. Herein, we report the first widespread survey of insecticide resistance in the USA ever undertaken for the house fly, Musca domestica, a major pest in animal production facilities. The levels of resistance to six different insecticides were determined (using discriminating concentration bioassays) in 10 collections of house flies from dairies in nine different states. In addition, the frequencies of Vssc and CYP6D1 alleles that confer resistance to pyrethroid insecticides were determined for each fly population. Levels of resistance to the six insecticides varied among states and insecticides. Resistance to permethrin was highest overall and most consistent across the states. Resistance to methomyl was relatively consistent, with 65–91% survival in nine of the ten collections. In contrast, resistance to cyfluthrin and pyrethrins + piperonyl butoxide varied considerably (2.9–76% survival). Resistance to imidacloprid was overall modest and showed no signs of increasing relative to collections made in 2004, despite increasing use of this insecticide. The frequency of Vssc alleles that confer pyrethroid resistance was variable between locations. The highest frequencies of kdr, kdr-his and super-kdr were found in Minnesota, North Carolina and Kansas, respectively. In contrast, the New Mexico population had the highest frequency (0.67) of the susceptible allele. The implications of these results to resistance management and to the understanding of the evolution of insecticide resistance are discussed.     

How distinct are arbuscular mycorrhizal fungal communities associating with grapevines?

Grapevines form associations with arbuscular mycorrhizal (AM) fungi. These root-dwelling fungi have the potential to contribute to crop vigor, productivity, pathogen protection, and nutrient content in grapes. In this study the arbuscular mycorrhizal fungal communities of grapevines and the surrounding interrow and native vegetation are compared. We found over 40 different taxa associating with both vines and interrow vegetation, but these communities differed based on host plant identity. These differences were apparent even after accounting for differences in soil chemical properties and differences in host plant diversity between vinerows and interrows, indicating that Vitis preferentially interacts with a subset of the viticultural fungal community. Since AM fungal communities play a major role in grapevine health, our results suggest that host identity and the diversity of AM fungal hosts in a vineyard can have strong effects on arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi community structure. In this paper, we used high throughput sequencing of the large subunit rDNA to analyze the diversity of AM fungi growing in a vineyard.