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Comments, Suggestions or Questions?

We'd love to hear from you! If you have a comment, suggestion, information or an article idea that you would like included in the Tarheel Pest Management News, please do not hesitate to Email NCPMA@pestworld.org.
December 2014 
 PCT Winter School Registration is Now Open!
 
The North Carolina Pest Management Association will be hosting our PCT Winter School in Durham, NC on January 26-29, 2015.

Click here for attendee registration.

Click here for exhibitor registration.  

To view the schedule of event please click here.
PCT School Hotel Information    

Hotel rooms are sold out at the Sheraton Imperial Hotel and Convention Center.

An overflow block of rooms is set at Springhill Suites by Marriott, located next door to the Sheraton Imperial Hotel and Convention Center, at 920 Slater Road, Durham, NC  27703.  The group rate of $119.00 applies with a cut-off date of January 16, 2015 to make reservations.  To book a hotel room, please contact Springhill Suites directly at 919-998-9500 and reference code PTSN to make reservations.


Helping Families Through NCPMA In Action     

Has your company participated in the NCPMA In Action 2014 Year-End Outreach this December? We want to know about it!

NCPMA members around the state continue to help families in need by donating free bed bug services statewide.

We are encouraging every member of NCPMA to provide at least one free bed bug treatment to a deserving home before the end of the year. These treatments should follow approved standards for bed bug treatment methods and follow up treatments are at your company's discretion.

If your company donates a bed bug treatment, please let us know and share your story by filling out the click here to complete a donation form and send to newsroom@ncpestmanagement.org.

For questions, please contact Lee Smith or Kristin Dodd.
 

What Can Cockroaches Tell Us About Pollution? 
 

It's been well established that cockroaches are unsanitary and can spoil foods and surfaces. Additionally, the biggest cockroach pest in the world, the German cockroach, has feces and cast skins that have a negative effect on human health and are a significant cause of asthma in children. A recent study conducted in China took a different approach to the issue of cockroaches and indoor contaminants; cockroaches were evaluated for their ability to accumulate organic pollutants, a process called bioaccumulation. Cockroaches were collected and screened for selected pollutants including parent and halogenated polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs and HPAHs) and others commonly found in dust. The study's authors, led by Dr. Yan-Bing Wang, concluded that cockroaches are a good bioindicator for some pollutants, but not others. This is surely one of the first studies of its kind but will generate significant additional research efforts and hopefully lead to advancements in our understanding of cockroaches and the levels of pollutants in human environments.

This research was published in the most recent volume of the Ecological Indicators under the title, "Are cockroaches reliable bioindicators of persistent organic pollutant contamination of indoor environments?" 

Spiders Commonly Found in International Cargo 
 

A group of North American arachnologists, led by Dr. Richard Vetter of the University of California, Riverside, recently collected and published a set of spider identifications from specimens submitted by people working with international shipping cargo. Spiders found in bananas and other imported items, primarily from Central and South America, were often misidentified at the point of entry and mistakenly believed to be of medical importance. The spiders most commonly submitted were the pantropical hunstman spider, Heteropoda venatoria, and the redfaced banana spider, Cupiennius chiapanensis, both large but innocuous species. Of the 135 spiders identified in this study, 10 of them were medically important, including 3 widow spiders (Lactrodectus spp), and 7 Brazilian wandering spiders (Phoneutria spp). The authors of this study published a simple key to the most commonly encountered spiders in international cargo as part of this paper.

This research was published in the most recent volume of the Journal of Medical Entomology under the title, "Spiders (Araneae) Found in Bananas and Other International Cargo Submitted to North American Arachnologists for Identification" 

Effect of Aerosol Droplet Size on Confused Flour Beetle Mortality

As Scientists from the USDA and MRI Global, led by Dr. Frank H. Arthur, recently evaluated how effective different droplet sizes of a pyrethrin aerosol were against adult confused flour beetles (Tribolium confusum). Confused flour beetles are scavengers but can be a significant pest of flour, cereals, and grains, and are quite common in the northern United States. Initial experiments subjected beetles to 2 ml/min of the aerosol insecticide (1% pyrethrins, 5% piperonyl butoxide) for up to 45 minutes and all beetles were knocked down during their exposure, even those that were only exposed for 150 seconds. However, recovery from knockdown was greater in lower exposure intervals. The results of two subsequent experiments showed that, for this insecticide and this stored product beetle, particle size was more of a determining factor in beetle mortality than concentration or number of particles.

This research was published in the most recent volume of the Journal of Economic Entomology under the title, "Susceptibility of Tribolium confusum (Coleoptera: Tenebrionidae) to Pyrethrin Aerosol: Effects of Aerosol Particle Size, Concentration, and Exposure Conditions."