A three months visit to the Cardiff University regarding work on the project "Ecosystem service of predatory arthropods in Mediterranean agriculture using an environmental DNA tool" has ended. The obtained sequences from the foregut of the predatory insects gave been used in constructing feeding networks. We will present the results at the 64th Symposium on Plant Protection in Opatija and the International Agricultural Conference in Vodice to demonstrate the importance of predator diversity in agricultural ecosystems and the application of a new methodology in assessing trophic ecology. A publication from the obtained results on the trophic ecology of predatory arthropods in Mediterranean agriculture via DNA metabarcoding diet analyses is in preparation.

Many thanks to Bill Symondson and his team as well as to all the colleagues in the Molecular Ecology Lab and the Genomic Research Hub for their generous help!!!

Invited talk:  Dr Lucija Šerić Jelaska - University of Zagreb “Carabids Rock! - their role in the ecosystem”, Cardiff University, School of Biosciencs, Organisms and environment Division  

Location E/0.09

Date: 03/10/2019

Starts at 13:10, - All welcome

https://www.cardiff.ac.uk/biosciences/events/seminar-series

Within UKF project activities, new primer were designed and tested in order to exclude predator DNA during PCR amplification. DNA was extracted from the gut of 288 individual predatory carabid beetles. After Mid-tag PCRs samples were proceeded for Library Preparation and NGS sequencing using MiSeq, Illumina within Genomics Research Hub at the Cardiff University.

MEDITERATRI project team attended 19th European Carabidologists Meeting in Italy, entitled with three oral and one poster presentations. The first talk presented part of the work done within current UKF project.

Lucija Šerić Jelaska, Barbara Anđelić, Mišel Jelić, Tomislav Kos  (2019) MEDITERATRI project - assessing the trophic ecology of predatory arthropods in Mediterranean agriculture via DNA metabarcoding diet analyses.doi: 10.3897/aca.2.e38865 link https://aca.pensoft.net/article/38865/

Lucija Šerić Jelaska, Barbara Anđelić, Mišel Jelić, Tomislav Kos, Hugo Benitez (2019) Body burden of pesticides and shape asymmetry in carabid beetles in different agricultural practices in Mediterranean agroecosystems doi: 10.3897/aca.2.e38626 link https://aca.pensoft.net/article/38626/

Željka Jambrošić Vladić, Lucija Šerić Jelaska (2019)  Comparison of carabid beetles assemblages (Coleoptera: Carabidae) after the 25-year period in protected forests of Mountain Risnjak doi: 10.3897/aca.2.e38893 link https://aca.pensoft.net/article/38893/

Tomislav Kos, Barbara Anđelić, Mišel Jelić, Lucija Šerić Jelaska, Kristijan Franin (2019) Diversity of plant-eating invertebrates as potential prey of carabid beetles in olive groves and vineyards in southern Croatia doi: 10.3897/aca.2.e38570  link https://aca.pensoft.net/article/38570/