Tyson Wepprich's research while affiliated with Oregon State University and other places

... sachalinensis ) and their hybrid Bohemian knotweeds (F. x bohemica ) have been targeted for biological control by the psyllidAphalara itadori (Hemiptera: Aphalaridae) for over a decade in the United Kingdom, since 2014 in Canada and since 2020 in the USA and the Netherlands (Camargo et al., 2022;Grevstad et al., 2022). Despite large scale, repeated introductions of A. itadori using thousands of individuals locally, long-term establishment, population growth and control of knotweeds have not been successful at any locations to date (Fung et al., 2020;Grevstad et al., 2018;Grevstad et al., 2022;Jones et al., 2021). ...

... To gain a bird's eye view on predictability of animal population sizes and phenotypes, we analyzed 320 invertebrate and 963 vertebrate ecological time series from the four taxonomic groups insects, birds, mammals and fish, where invertebrate data were either collected at the species level or at the plot level [44,45] (ESM Fig. S3, Table S1, Appendix 3); and we analyzed 307 phenotypic time series of bird, fish, and mammal populations [46] (ESM Fig. S3, Table S3, Appendix 3). . CC-BY-NC-ND 4.0 International license available under a (which was not certified by peer review) is the author/funder, who has granted bioRxiv a license to display the preprint in perpetuity. ...

... Moreover, significant improvements in model accuracy were not observed across three common GDD calculation methods. Although the single-sine method was marginally superior, simpler calculation methods (e.g., simple average) can be used by field practitioners and decision support platforms for rapid decision-making and spatialization of phenology forecasts using real-time weather data (Fig. 3) (Barker et al. 2020;Crimmins et al. 2020). ...

... The release of BCAs, in classical or augmentative biological control programs, may have evolutionary consequences for the populations of the target pests, the released BCAs and other nontarget species of the recipient environment (Sethuraman et al., 2020). Evolution can be rapid, driving eco-evolutionary dynamics at contemporary scales (Sigmund & Holt, 2021) and, therefore, considering the evolution of organisms in novel environments is essential for classical or augmentative biological control programs (Wepprich & Grevstad, 2021). ...

... These comprisesvoltinism shifts and phenological variations in the autumn and winter [17]- [19]. For instance, alterations in the timing of diapause induction may have a significant impact on overwinter existence, but alterations in voltinism [20]- [22]may create "demographic bonanzas" or "developmental traps" for insects adapting to climate change [23], [24]. ...

... Most flowering plants and economically important crops rely on insect pollinators for reproduction and seed production [3]. As a result, the recent precipitous decline in abundance and diversity of many insect pollinators may lead to dramatic ecological and economic disruptions [4][5][6]. For example, one-third of flowering plants would produce no seeds without insect pollinators, and crop production in the USA would be greatly decreased by a reduction in pollinators [2,3]. ...

... On the surface, the quantification of urban biodiversity is simple enough: standard survey methods such as visual observations, pitfall traps, bait traps, and light traps can be used to quantify the number of species and their individual abundances at sampling points from beyond the urban footprint to the city core. However, in practice, both universal and urban-specific factors make this task complex [8]. As one example, site-selection biases can yield misleading estimates of biodiversity gradients [9], and such considerations can be magnified in cities with rapid landscape changes over compressed spatial scales [10]. ...

... Accurate and precise phenological metrics of butterflies are of urgent concern given reports of broad butterfly declines [56][57][58] and recent results suggesting phenological shifts are associated with overall abundance trends 26,59 . Warmer temperatures are also leading to additional generations in certain multivoltine butterfly species, which may lead to unexpected shifts in median phenology, as well as affecting demographic outcomes 60 . ...

... Using museum collection data of monarch specimens, however, a more recent PNAS study (31) provides evidence that the observed decline in recent years is part of a long-term trend that had already begun in the 1950s, long prior to commerce in glyphosate and GT crops. A lively debate has ensued regarding the merits of the museum data collection methodology (32)(33)(34). ...

... With high mortality in the final generation, the number of offspring that hatch the following season would subsequently decrease (Cayton et al. 2015). These trends have been documented in other Lepidoptera (Huey and Kingsolver 1993;Kingsolver and Huey 2008;Diamond et al. 2014;Miller-Rushing et al. 2010). If this phenomenon continued over several years, reduced per capita fecundity could decrease population size. ...