Flowers of common ivy (Hedera helix L.) provide late season pollen and nectar for several insect groups, and its fruits are a winter and spring food source for frugivorous birds. Ivy benefits from insect pollination in order to set fruit, but it is unknown which flower-visiting insects are the most effective pollinators. Our observations suggest that Vespula wasps are potentially the most effective pollinators since they were frequent visitors, had relatively fast foraging rates, carried large numbers of pollen grains on their bodies and had the highest ‘Pollination potential PP index’ score (a measure of pollinator effectiveness) of all the insect groups examined. There was also a positive linear relationship between the proportion of ivy flowers that set fruit and wasp foraging activity in 0.5 m2 quadrats. Visits by Vespula wasps may therefore be important for ensuring a supply of ivy fruits for b

Ensuring strong populations of insect pollinators may be essential to guarantee a winter fruit supply for birds in UK hedgerows.

This study demonstrates an innovative way of detecting, at an early stage, the symptoms of damage to oranges by the Mediterranean fruit fly.

The real-world performance of a home telemonitoring strategy (ForeseeHome AMD Monitoring System®, Notal Vision, Inc.,Manassas VA, USA) was evaluated and compared to the device arm of the AREDS2-HOME study among patients with intermediate AMD (iAMD) who converted to neovascular AMD (nAMD). All patients with confirmed conversion to nAMD who used the home monitoring system from 10/2009 through 9/2018 were identified by Notal Vision Diagnostic Clinic’s medical records. Selected outcome variables were evaluated, including visual acuity (VA) at baseline and at conversion, and change in visual acuity (VA) from baseline to time of conversion. In total, 8991 patients performed 3,200,999 tests at a frequency of 5.6 ± 3.2 times/week. The 306 eyes that converted from iAMD to nAMD over the study period (a 2.7% annual rate) were included in the analyses. There was a median (interquartile range) change of −3.0 (0.0–(−10.0)) letters among converted eyes, 81% [95% confidence interval (72–88%)] maintained a VA ≥ 20/40 at the time of conversion, while 69% of the conversion detections were triggered by system alerts. The real-world performance of an at-home testing strategy was similar to that reported for the device arm of the AREDS2-HOME study. The home telemonitoring system can markedly increase early detection of conversion to nAMD.

BACKGROUND: High erucic acid oilseed rape (HEAR) was tested as a source crop for estimates of regional geneflow. Two methods to detect HEAR in low erucic acid oilseed rape (LEAR) were compared: real-time quantitative PCR (qPCR) and gas chromatography (GC).