Review of the New World species of Microplitis Foerster (Hymenoptera, Braconidae, Microgastrinae) attacking Sphingidae (Lepidoptera, Bombycoidea)

Microplitis Foerster is a highly diverse and cosmopolitan genus within Microgastrinae (Hymenoptera, Ichneumonoidea, Braconidae). Microplitis ceratomiae Riley, a widely distributed North American species, exclusively attacks sphingid caterpillars. In this paper, M. ceratomiae is reported parasitizing a caterpillar of Sphinx poecila Stephens (Sphingidae) which was collected feeding on Spiraea alba Du Roi (Rosaceae), a species of white meadowsweet native to the wet soils of the Allegheny Mountains and other portions of eastern North America. Here, we report and describe this new host-parasitoid-food plant association in southern New Hampshire, and include a distribution map for the species. Biological, ecological and phylogenetic analyses, and an identification key for the nine known species of Microplitis that attack sphingids in the New World are provided.

Cytogeography of the Solidago rugosa Mill. Complex (Asteraceae: Astereae) in Eastern North America

Chromosome numbers are reported here for the first time from 117 individuals of Solidago rugosa and S. fistulosa. Including 178 previously published reports for the two species plus S. latissimifolia, chromosome numbers have been determined from 295 individuals from 269 locations. Only diploids (2n = 18) were found throughout the range of S. fistulosa on the coastal plain in the eastern U.S.A. (44 counts). Diploids (2n = 18) were found in the northern portion of the range of S. latissimifolia, and tetraploids (2n = 36) and hexaploids (2n = 54) were found in the central and southern portions of the range (nine counts in total). Diploids (2n = 18) were found throughout the range of S. rugosa in much of eastern North America in four of the five varieties (northern var. rugosa, var. sphagnophila; southern var. aspera and var. celtidifolia). Tetraploids (2n = 36) were found in all four of these varieties and exclusively in var. cronquistiana in the southern high Appalachian Mountains. Hexaploids (2n = 54) were found in var. sphagnophila at scattered locations. One possible hexaploid in var. rugosa was found in the Allegheny Mountains. The diversity in ploidy levels was independent of the size of the range and the diversity of growing conditions among the three species of S. subsect. Venosae.

Making Wire Rope and the Wire Rope Industry (1840–48)

After missing out on the Schuylkill Bridge contract, John turned his attention to manufacturing wire rope, an entirely new idea in the United States. John undertook an extensive campaign to have his ropes adopted on the Allegheny Portage Railroad. The effort had John recruiting advocates, dodging political shenanigans, fixing technical hitches, and marching up and down the Allegheny Mountains, and his efforts were successful. Slowly, as each new rope met the demands of the mountain, more and more of the inclines switched over and started to use John’s ropes, as did others in the haulage business. John’s successes made him rich and led to the establishment of the American wire rope industry, in the process helping drag elevators up and down new tall buildings; pull funiculars up steep hills; power rigs, derricks, and cranes all over the nation; hold up suspension bridges of prodigious length; and drive mass transit cable car systems all over the United States.

Horace Kephart

Horace Kephart was born in Pennsylvania’s Allegheny Mountains. After graduation from Cornell University, he secured a position cataloguing a private book collection in Italy and then worked at the Yale University Library. Later, he served as director of the St. Louis Mercantile Library. Kephart had a lifelong fascination with the pioneer lifestyle. In his early forties, disenchanted with urban, domestic life, he began seeking respite through camping trips in the Ozarks. In 1904, following separation from his wife and children, Kephart settled in Hazel Creek, North Carolina, then a remote mountain community sixteen miles from the nearest railroad station. During his three years at Hazel Creek, Kephart integrated himself into mountaineer culture and kept twenty-seven journals of his observations....

Cambarus fetzneri sp. nov., a new species of burrowing crayfish (Decapoda: Cambaridae) from the Allegheny Mountains of Virginia and West Virginia, USA

The disjunct distribution of Cambarus monongalensis has led to speculation about its taxonomic status. An Appalachian Plateau population occurs in northern and central West Virginia and Southwestern Pennsylvania, and a mountain population occurs in the Allegheny Mountains and Ridge and Valley physiographic provinces of the Virginias. Herein we describe the mountain population as Cambarus fetzneri sp. nov. The two species differ genetically and morphologically, and have different color patterns. Specifically, C. fetzneri sp. nov. chelae lack extensive red coloration on the distal end of the propodus and dactyl, possess rostral margins that lack any red coloration, compared to C. monongalensis, which has extensive red coloration on the dactyl and propodus, as well as red rostral margins. Morphologically, the rostrum of C. fetzneri sp. nov. is shorter and wider than that of C. monongalensis. Also, adult C. fetzneri sp. nov. are considerably smaller in body size than those of C. monongalensis.

Observed Mesoscale Hydroclimate Variability of North America’s Allegheny Mountains at 40.2° N

Spatial hydroclimatic variability of Eastern North America’s Allegheny Mountain System (AMS) is commonly oversimplified to elevation differences and the rain-shadow effect. Descriptive and higher order statistical properties of hourly meteorological observations (1948–2017) from seven airports were analyzed to better understand AMS climatic complexity. Airports were located along a longitudinal transect (40.2 °N) and observation infrastructure was positioned to minimize climatic gradients associated with insolation, slope, and aspect. Results indicated average ambient temperature was well correlated with airport elevation (R2 = 0.97). However, elevation was relatively poorly correlated to dew point temperature (R2 = 0.80) and vapor pressure deficit (R2 = 0.61) heterogeneity. Skewness and kurtosis of ambient and dew point temperatures were negative at all airports indicating hourly values below the median were more common and extreme values were less common than a normal distribution implies. Westerly winds accounted for 54.5% of observations indicating prevailing winds misrepresented nearly half of AMS weather phenomena. The sum of maximum hourly precipitation rates was maximized in Philadelphia, PA implying a convective precipitation maximum near the border of Piedmont and Coastal Plain provinces. Results further indicate the AMS represents a barrier to omnidirectional moisture advection suggesting physiographic provinces are characterized by distinct evapotranspiration and precipitation regimes. The current work draws attention to observed mesoscale hydroclimatic heterogeneity of the AMS region and identifies mechanisms influencing local to regional water quantity and quality issues that are relevant to many locations globally.

Horace Holley

The life of Horace Holley (1781–1827) recalls a time of intellectual promise in the American republic. The New England–born, Yale-educated, Unitarian minister was an unlikely choice for the presidency of Transylvania University in Kentucky, the first college west of the Allegheny Mountains. Kentucky’s religious leaders questioned his orthodoxy; elected officials doubted his abilities; others simply found him arrogant and elitist. As president, however, Holley ushered in a period of sustained educational and cultural growth. Transylvania blossomed under his oversight and received national attention for its scientifically progressive, liberal curriculum. Lexington, Kentucky, the seat of Transylvania, benefited directly from his efforts. An influx of students and celebrated faculty lent the city a distinguished atmosphere and gave credibility to the appellation “Athens of the West.” But Holley’s story is greater than the sum of these experiences. As a young student at a rising American university, a Calvinist minister in a rural New England town, a Unitarian urbanite of national acclaim, a relocated northern Yankee in Kentucky, and president of the first and most prosperous university of the early American West, Holley symbolizes a period of rapid transformation. His experiences reflect a time when westward expansion and social progress ran against developing religious expectations and regional identities. Holley also figures prominently in the history of education in America. His innovations and missteps, successes and defeats, personal connections and bitter advisories make him an important figure not only in the evolution of an emerging state university but also in the emerging state of higher education in early America.

Submeso Motions within the Stable Boundary Layer and Their Relationships to Local Indicators and Synoptic Regime in Moderately Complex Terrain

To better understand the physical processes of the stable boundary layer and to quantify “submeso motions” in moderately complex terrain, exploratory case-study analyses were performed using observational field data supplemented by gridded North American Regional Reanalysis data and Pennsylvania State University real-time Weather Research and Forecasting Model output. Submeso motions are nominally defined as all motions between the largest turbulent scales and the smallest mesoscales. Seven nighttime cases from August and September of 2011 are chosen from a central Pennsylvania [“Rock Springs” (RS)] network of eight ground-based towers and two sound detection and ranging (sodar) systems . The observation network is located near Tussey Ridge, ~15 km southeast of the Allegheny Mountains. The seven cases are classified by the dominant synoptic-flow direction and proximity to terrain to assess the influence of synoptic conditions on the local submeso and mesogamma motions. It is found that synoptic winds with a large crossing angle over nearby Tussey Ridge can generate mesogamma wave motions and larger-magnitude submeso temperature and wind fluctuations in the RS network than do winds from the direction of the more distant Allegheny Mountains. Cases with synoptic winds that are nearly parallel to the topographic contours or are generally weak exhibit the smallest fluctuations. Changes in the magnitude of near-surface submeso temperature and wind fluctuations in response to local indicator variables are also analyzed. The observed submeso wind and temperature fluctuations are generally larger when the low-level wind speed and thermal stratification, respectively, are greater, but the synoptic flow and its relation to the terrain also play an important role.