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Cicadas' odd life cycle poses evolutionary conundrums
By Susan Milius
Web edition: June 28, 2013 Print edition: July 13, 2013; Vol.184 #1 (p. 26)
Enlarge
Credit: Tom Siegfried
After 17 years underground, throngs of ruby-eyed cicadas clawed up through the soil this year to partake in a once-in-a-lifetime, synchronized mating frenzy. Except it wasn?t one big insect orgy: It was three.
The insects that unearthed themselves to breed in 2013 belong to three distinct species. You need only flip them over to see some differences, written in the varieties of their orange markings.
You can hear the differences too, says Chris Simon of the University of Connecticut in Storrs. The tymbals on either side of a male?s abdomen vibrate to make the racket for which cicadas are famous. A chorus of courting Magicicada cassini males sounds like an electric carving knife revving up. M. septendecula coughs out a series of? rasps. And M. septendecim serenades with the whistling drone of a B-movie spaceship.
The various thrums and buzzings may mingle in the same neighborhood, but the last time ancestors of these species mated with each other was almost 4 million years ago, Simon says. That?s the conclusion of the most detailed genetic studies yet of periodical cicada evolutionary history, which Simon and colleagues published in April in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. With DNA plus episodic field observations, the scientists are getting an idea about the odd family tree of periodical cicadas, how the insects synchronize their life cycles and why they breed side-by-side with others unsuitable for mating.
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The three species of Brood II that emerged this year are (left to right) Magicicada cassini,M. septendecula, and M. septendecim. The males sing species-specific songs to ensure that they attract the appropriate females.
Credit: Courtesy of John Cooley/Univ. of Conn.
Biologists have named a few thousand cicada species worldwide, all within the families Cicadidae and Tettigarctidae. Cicadas nestle on the evolutionary tree of life among planthoppers and related botanical vampires that suck plant fluids ? not with locusts as is commonly thought. But only the seven named species that make up the genus Magicicada live underground for more than a decade and then burst forth to breed in multi-species masses. These periodical cicadas live in eastern and central North America, where biologists and spring-wedding planners alike keep tabs on the 15 different cohorts, or broods. The broods are identified according to the years in which they cycle into frantic reproduction.
From then to now
On an evolutionary family tree, the periodical cicadas branch and then fan into species sets with patterns that echo each other. And since this is biology and not mathematical theory, odd anomalies show up here and there.
For example, consider the origins of the 13- and 17-year cyclers. A biologist from another planet might hypothesize that such a dramatic difference in life cycles arose once when ancient ancestors of today?s 17-year species diverged from 13-year counterparts. Logical enough, but not what happened, Simon says.
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Life underground
View larger image | Billions of noisy bugs may attract all the attention, but the cicadas' mass emergence is just the final blip in the long life of the periodical species. All seven species spend the majority of their lives buried in the soil. Then, on cue, they surface to find a mate and reproduce.
Credit: Nicolle Rager Fuller
The big, new family tree confirms that a common ancestor first split into three lineages (called Cassini, Decula and Decim) and then each lineage independently evolved 17-year and 13-year forms. So this year?s cicada brood, designated by the Roman numeral II, comprises a 17-year species from each of the three ancient lineages. And the closest sister species of this year?s breeders are not each other but 13-year cyclers locked in with different broods.
Safety in numbers
What preserves the multi-species broods may be cicada predators, says Rick Karban of the University of California, Davis. Cicadas haven?t evolved the common insect defenses of camouflage or nimble flight. These are big, noisy bugs without many escape skills. ?You can pick them off a tree,? Karban says. ?They?re just seemingly ? dumb.?
But with thousands, millions or billions living conspicuously for the same brief period of time, each individual has a better chance of surviving. Predators can?t eat the whole generation. There?s safety in extreme numbers, so synchronizing with a different species beats coming out with just your own in smaller numbers and getting picked off by hungry birds. As segments of different species overlap in their reproductive timing, they ?get sucked into a brood,? Simon says. Only one brood, VII, consists of just one species.
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Mix and match
View larger image | Almost any year, periodical cicadas burst from the ground in mating frenzies in the eastern United States. A single cohort, Brood II, emerged in 2013, but in 2014 and 2015, both 13- and 17-year cicada broods will emerge. (Color-coded dots show observed or expected locations.) Most broods include a mix of what are considered separate Magicicada species, which evolved from a common ancestor almost 4 million years ago (family tree, left). Those ancestors branched into three main lineages: Decula, Cassini and Decim. Now each lineage has its own 13-year species (?tre? prefix) and 17-year species (?septen? prefix, not used in M. cassini). Species from each lineage live in all regions (east, middle and west) where cicadas are found. The genetics of the regional populations mirrors their geographic distribution (shown on tree).
Credit: T. Sota et al/PNAS 2013 and Magicicada.org; Map: E. Otwell
Surging forth in great numbers to thwart predators is not some special cicada thing, Karban notes. Cicadas get the headlines, but mayflies transforming from their aquatic to aerial forms synchronize, and oak trees drop occasional bumper crops of acorns.
How the cicadas manage to synchronize may be trickier to explain, though. In fact, cicadas in the same brood grow idiosyncratically. Karban has dug up samples of periodical cicadas during their underground years and found all kinds of out-of-sync stages of development. Those that race through the five stages of underground life end up waiting for the signal to emerge, giving the laggards time to catch up.
What that signal might be is also in question. Soil temperature probably cues the right calendar day for the neighborhood mass emergence, but how the cicadas choose the right year is a puzzle. They could ?count? the years with seasonal changes in the tree sap they feed on, Karban speculates. To test this idea, he dug up cicadas with two years yet to go underground and moved them onto roots in a colleague?s research set of peach trees. The colleague coaxed the trees to flower twice in one year, and cicadas emerged as if two years had passed instead of one.
But why so long underground? Karban?s answer is basically, why not? A long immature period may have more advantages than disadvantages. Again he has gone digging. His samples of cicadas from underground don?t show much evidence of premature death by predator attack. And spending more time growing may mean bigger bodies with the power to have more offspring. The 17-year cicadas he unearthed in the Midwest were in the process of forming more eggs than 13-year ones living nearby.
A long development time could also have been a big boon for surviving the ice ages, says geologist Randy Cox of the University of Memphis, who has analyzed how climate affects the pattern of cicada emergences. During ice ages, he points out, even southern refuges had chilly years, and a really cold spell could wipe out a population. The longer a cicada?s cycle, the fewer times populations would have to play climate roulette.
If big numbers are good for cicada life cycles, he and other researchers suspect that big, prime numbers (divisible only by one and themselves) are even better. Predator populations can rise and fall in cycles too. If cicadas had a 12-year cycle instead of a 13-year one, for example, they would coincide more frequently with big years of any predators on two-, three- or four-year cycles.
Those big, prime numbers might also minimize unfortunate hybridization between cicadas timed to breed on different cycles, Cox suggests. When such cicadas? reproductive years coincide, any cross-breeding could doom offspring. Their half-brood genes could lead them to reproduce in some intermediate year between mom?s and dad?s regular cycle. Without the company of millions of pure-broods, hybrids would be easy pickings for predators and reproductive dead-ends for their family lineages. But with life spans of 13 and 17 years, the simultaneous emergence of broods on different schedules happens only once every 221 years.
Cicadas may even somehow influence predator cycles, suggests ornithologist Walt Koenig of Cornell University. Decades of nationwide citizen-science surveys of breeding birds show that cicadas tend to show up during dips in numbers of seven cicada-eating birds, including American crows and blue jays. This may not be coincidence. That feast of easy-to-catch cicadas may somehow set bird populations on rise-and-fall trajectories that miss big cicada years, he and Andrew Liebhold of the USDA Northern Research Station in Morgantown, W.Va., proposed in the January American Naturalist. ?Even we think this is kind of weird,? he says, ?but it fits the data.?
However the brood emergences came to be, they?re worth seeking out. ?Cicadas are one of the big natural spectacles of North America,? Karban says. For those who missed the show this year, he promises, one of the 15 periodical broods will break out loud and dumb somewhere almost any year.
Salmonella infection is a battle between good and bad bacteria in the gutPublic release date: 26-Jun-2013 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Mary Beckman mary.beckman@pnnl.gov 509-375-3688 DOE/Pacific Northwest National Laboratory
New insights into food poisoning show Salmonella have a novel sugar preference
RICHLAND, Wash. -- The blockbuster battles between good and evil are not just on the big screen this summer. A new study that examined food poisoning infection as-it-happens in mice revealed harmful bacteria, such as a common type of Salmonella, takes over beneficial bacteria within the gut amid previously unseen changes to the gut environment. The results provide new insights into the course of infection and could lead to better prevention or new treatments.
"We're trying to tease apart a largely unknown area of biology," said systems biologist Josh Adkins and team lead at the Department of Energy's Pacific Northwest National Laboratory. "Infection changes the populations of bacteria in the gut with resulting inflammation. We want to understand the interplay between these events."
Out this week in PLOS ONE, the study shows that Salmonella Typhimurium might use the sugar fucose either as a sign that it has found a good place to reproduce or use fucose to sustain itself during infection, or both. This was the first time researchers saw fucose as an important player during Salmonella infection.
"We were taken completely by surprise with the fucose results," said Adkins. They also saw other sugars that normally are eaten by resident bacteria going untouched. "By knowing what the bacteria eat, we can try to promote the good bacteria and throw off the battle."
The Mice
Food poisoning caused by Salmonella bacteria hits more than 40,000 people every year. One of the common types that infect people, Salmonella Typhimurium, doesn't usually get mice sick, so Adkins and colleagues used mice uniquely sensitive to Salmonella infection. After infecting mice with the disease-causing bacteria orally, the researchers could follow the course of the illness by analyzing what came out of the other end of the mice.
"In most studies, researchers clear out the resident bacteria with antibiotics before introducing infectious bacteria," said microbiologist Brooke Deatherage Kaiser. "In this study, we could watch Salmonella knock out the commensal organisms and then watch them come back. Following the interactions through time is not something we've been able to do before."
The story they put together shows how Salmonella usurps microbes that normally populate the gut. Known as commensal bacteria, resident bugs perform important functions such as breaking down carbohydrates and sugars that people and mice can't. Using advanced instruments and techniques, the researchers identified which populations of bacteria dominated as infection progressed and mice recovered, as well as changes in the gastrointestinal tract, such as the presence of inflammation and available nutrients. Some of the experiments were performed in EMSL, the DOE's Environmental Molecular Sciences Laboratory on PNNL's campus.
The Sugars
While many events the team witnessed were expected, such as infection causing inflammation in the gut, some were not. One unexpected change was in the kinds of sugars available for bacteria to eat. A handful of sugars that good bacteria normally chow down on lay around the gut untouched.
This stockpile of unusual sugars likely occurred because the good bacteria had, by that point, been overtaken by Salmonella and another bacterial variety, Enterococci. Enteroccoci are normally found in the gut, but can take advantage of opportunities to overgrow their welcome.
Unexpectedly, several lines of evidence suggested that Salmonella might use the sugar fucose as a food source. This study showed that the bacteria produced proteins that specifically help it digest fucose, which was the first time these researchers observed fucose proteins during Salmonella infection.
Although additional research will be needed to flesh out the role of fucose in the infectious cycle of SalmonellaTyphimurium, this observation may help to control or prevent gastrointestinal infection in the future by a better understanding of nutrient sources and signals in the gut.
Overall, the study allowed the PNNL researchers to follow the rise and fall of the infecting bacteria, the fall and rise during recovery of the commensal bacteria, and changes to the gut as the mice fended off the infection. Future research will focus on what happens in other areas of the intestine to get a handle on the difference between the type of illness this study represented, acute gastrointestinal disease, and more systemic infection.
###
This work was supported by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease.
Reference: Brooke L. Deatherage Kaiser, Jie Li, James A. Sanford, Young-Mo Kim, Scott R. Kronewitter, Marcus B. Jones, Christine T. Peterson, Scott N. Peterson, Bryan C. Frank, Samuel O. Purvine, Joseph N. Brown, Thomas O. Metz, Richard D. Smith, Fred Heffron, and Joshua N. Adkins. A Multi-Omic View of Host-Pathogen-Commensal Interplay in Salmonella-Mediated Intestinal Infection, PLOS ONE Month Day, Year, doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0067155. (http://dx.plos.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0067155)
EMSL, the Environmental Molecular Sciences Laboratory, is a national scientific user facility sponsored by the Department of Energy's Office of Science. Located at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory in Richland, Wash., EMSL offers an open, collaborative environment for scientific discovery to researchers around the world. Its integrated computational and experimental resources enable researchers to realize important scientific insights and create new technologies. Follow EMSL on Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter.
Interdisciplinary teams at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory address many of America's most pressing issues in energy, the environment and national security through advances in basic and applied science. PNNL employs 4,500 staff, has an annual budget of nearly $1 billion, and has been managed for the U.S. Department of Energy by Ohio-based Battelle since the laboratory's inception in 1965. For more, visit the PNNL's News Center, or follow PNNL on Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter.
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AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
Salmonella infection is a battle between good and bad bacteria in the gutPublic release date: 26-Jun-2013 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Mary Beckman mary.beckman@pnnl.gov 509-375-3688 DOE/Pacific Northwest National Laboratory
New insights into food poisoning show Salmonella have a novel sugar preference
RICHLAND, Wash. -- The blockbuster battles between good and evil are not just on the big screen this summer. A new study that examined food poisoning infection as-it-happens in mice revealed harmful bacteria, such as a common type of Salmonella, takes over beneficial bacteria within the gut amid previously unseen changes to the gut environment. The results provide new insights into the course of infection and could lead to better prevention or new treatments.
"We're trying to tease apart a largely unknown area of biology," said systems biologist Josh Adkins and team lead at the Department of Energy's Pacific Northwest National Laboratory. "Infection changes the populations of bacteria in the gut with resulting inflammation. We want to understand the interplay between these events."
Out this week in PLOS ONE, the study shows that Salmonella Typhimurium might use the sugar fucose either as a sign that it has found a good place to reproduce or use fucose to sustain itself during infection, or both. This was the first time researchers saw fucose as an important player during Salmonella infection.
"We were taken completely by surprise with the fucose results," said Adkins. They also saw other sugars that normally are eaten by resident bacteria going untouched. "By knowing what the bacteria eat, we can try to promote the good bacteria and throw off the battle."
The Mice
Food poisoning caused by Salmonella bacteria hits more than 40,000 people every year. One of the common types that infect people, Salmonella Typhimurium, doesn't usually get mice sick, so Adkins and colleagues used mice uniquely sensitive to Salmonella infection. After infecting mice with the disease-causing bacteria orally, the researchers could follow the course of the illness by analyzing what came out of the other end of the mice.
"In most studies, researchers clear out the resident bacteria with antibiotics before introducing infectious bacteria," said microbiologist Brooke Deatherage Kaiser. "In this study, we could watch Salmonella knock out the commensal organisms and then watch them come back. Following the interactions through time is not something we've been able to do before."
The story they put together shows how Salmonella usurps microbes that normally populate the gut. Known as commensal bacteria, resident bugs perform important functions such as breaking down carbohydrates and sugars that people and mice can't. Using advanced instruments and techniques, the researchers identified which populations of bacteria dominated as infection progressed and mice recovered, as well as changes in the gastrointestinal tract, such as the presence of inflammation and available nutrients. Some of the experiments were performed in EMSL, the DOE's Environmental Molecular Sciences Laboratory on PNNL's campus.
The Sugars
While many events the team witnessed were expected, such as infection causing inflammation in the gut, some were not. One unexpected change was in the kinds of sugars available for bacteria to eat. A handful of sugars that good bacteria normally chow down on lay around the gut untouched.
This stockpile of unusual sugars likely occurred because the good bacteria had, by that point, been overtaken by Salmonella and another bacterial variety, Enterococci. Enteroccoci are normally found in the gut, but can take advantage of opportunities to overgrow their welcome.
Unexpectedly, several lines of evidence suggested that Salmonella might use the sugar fucose as a food source. This study showed that the bacteria produced proteins that specifically help it digest fucose, which was the first time these researchers observed fucose proteins during Salmonella infection.
Although additional research will be needed to flesh out the role of fucose in the infectious cycle of SalmonellaTyphimurium, this observation may help to control or prevent gastrointestinal infection in the future by a better understanding of nutrient sources and signals in the gut.
Overall, the study allowed the PNNL researchers to follow the rise and fall of the infecting bacteria, the fall and rise during recovery of the commensal bacteria, and changes to the gut as the mice fended off the infection. Future research will focus on what happens in other areas of the intestine to get a handle on the difference between the type of illness this study represented, acute gastrointestinal disease, and more systemic infection.
###
This work was supported by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease.
Reference: Brooke L. Deatherage Kaiser, Jie Li, James A. Sanford, Young-Mo Kim, Scott R. Kronewitter, Marcus B. Jones, Christine T. Peterson, Scott N. Peterson, Bryan C. Frank, Samuel O. Purvine, Joseph N. Brown, Thomas O. Metz, Richard D. Smith, Fred Heffron, and Joshua N. Adkins. A Multi-Omic View of Host-Pathogen-Commensal Interplay in Salmonella-Mediated Intestinal Infection, PLOS ONE Month Day, Year, doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0067155. (http://dx.plos.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0067155)
EMSL, the Environmental Molecular Sciences Laboratory, is a national scientific user facility sponsored by the Department of Energy's Office of Science. Located at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory in Richland, Wash., EMSL offers an open, collaborative environment for scientific discovery to researchers around the world. Its integrated computational and experimental resources enable researchers to realize important scientific insights and create new technologies. Follow EMSL on Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter.
Interdisciplinary teams at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory address many of America's most pressing issues in energy, the environment and national security through advances in basic and applied science. PNNL employs 4,500 staff, has an annual budget of nearly $1 billion, and has been managed for the U.S. Department of Energy by Ohio-based Battelle since the laboratory's inception in 1965. For more, visit the PNNL's News Center, or follow PNNL on Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter.
[ | E-mail | Share ]
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AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
LOS ANGELES (AP) ? Banks are increasingly extending auto-loan financing to borrowers with less-than-sterling credit, a trend that's contributing to a higher rate of missed loan payments.
The rate of U.S. auto-loan payments late by 60 days or more rose to 0.88 percent in the first three months of the year, credit reporting agency TransUnion said Tuesday.
That's up from 0.82 percent in the first quarter last year, but down from 1 percent in the last three months of 2012, the firm said.
Among subprime borrowers, or those whom lenders deem a higher credit risk because of their track record of managing debt, the delinquency rate jumped to 5.5 percent in the first quarter from 5.09 percent a year earlier.
Steady job gains, low interest rates and improving consumer confidence have helped spur U.S. sales of cars and trucks. Many Americans are moving to replace older vehicles after holding back on purchases for several years following the last recession. Vehicle sales climbed 8 percent in May to 1.4 million.
Lenders have responded, making loans available to more borrowers, even those with less-than-perfect credit.
"Lenders have determined that their portfolios can handle additional risk at this point in the business cycle," said Peter Turek, automotive vice president at TransUnion.
As lenders continue to increase financing to high-risk borrowers, there's a greater chance those borrowers could fall behind on payments, Turek added.
Subprime borrowers accounted for 15 percent of all U.S. auto loans in the first quarter, unchanged from a year earlier. That share of all auto loans remains smaller than it was in the first three months of 2009, when subprime loans made up 20.3 percent of all auto loans, according to TransUnion.
All told, auto loan volume grew 6.1 percent in the first quarter versus the same period last year.
As lending has picked up, so have average balances on auto loans.
One reason for that is that banks are making more auto loans, which tend to have higher balances early on, as it typically takes several years for borrowers to pay them down.
For the January-March period, the average balance of a U.S. auto loan was $13,260, up 4 percent from $12,755 in the same period last year, the firm said.
Among subprime borrowers, the average auto loan balance grew 6.6 percent to $12,006 in the first quarter.
[unable to retrieve full-text content]Three Chinese astronauts returned safely to earth on Wednesday after a 15-day mission that included docking exercises, state television reported.
CHICAGO (AP) ? Like your cousin who doesn't pay his bills on time and squanders money he doesn't have, Illinois is paying the price ? in both cash and reputation ? for years of ignored warnings about its pension crisis, the worst in the nation.
Largely because of its unfunded retirement plans, Illinois has replaced longtime bottom-dweller California as having the lowest credit rating of any state. So when Illinois tries to borrow money, it faces the same problem as the spendthrift cousin: far higher interest rates.
The state's financial failings are so well-known, they have inspired a name on Wall Street ? the "Illinois effect," a reference to the fact that cities, universities and other bond-issuing entities here must pay more in interest, even if they are responsible spenders.
"There are investors who won't buy Illinois or bonds with Illinois labels at any price. They just see it as toxic," said Brian Battle, director at Performance Trust Capital Partners, a Chicago-based investment firm. That means the state pays "the biggest penalty by a long, long shot."
Battle compared the Illinois situation to someone who has a good job and plenty of revenue. But "we just spend like crazy, don't pay our credit cards and haven't saved for retirement," he said.
Take the $1.3 billion in bonds Illinois is expected to sell this week to improve highways, rebuild a 40-year-old elevated train line in Chicago and buy land for an airport. Battle estimates the state will pay more than $18 million in extra interest each year than states such as Virginia or Maryland, which have high credit ratings.
That's an additional $450 million over the 25-year life of a bond issue. In personal terms, it's $36 taken directly from the pockets of each of Illinois' nearly 13 million residents. And that's for just one bond sale.
For decades, legislators skipped or shorted payments to state retirement funds, creating a $97 billion pension shortfall and making investors nervous year after year. Yet lawmakers in the Democrat-controlled General Assembly adjourned the spring legislative session last month without a deal. It was the fifth time in 12 months that they left town without solving the crisis.
Within days, two major credit-rating agencies downgraded the state to an all-time low for Illinois. Gov. Pat Quinn called lawmakers back for a special session last week, but they could agree only to form a bipartisan committee to keep working on the problem.
Contributing to the inaction are the state's strong constitutional protections for pension benefits and a powerful union lobby that has opposed across-the-board cuts.
Still, the seeming lack of urgency dumbfounds some onlookers. Among them is Bill Daley, a former White House chief of staff and U.S. commerce secretary from the famous Chicago mayoral clan. He has focused on the pension debacle as he explores a challenge to Quinn in next year's Democratic primary.
"You can't have 13 downgrades in four years ... and think people are going to come here and create jobs," Daley said, questioning the need for repeated legislative sessions that yield no progress. "This is Groundhog Day."
State leaders insist they are trying to deal with the crisis. But in a place known for backroom deals, compromise can be hard to find, even after years of trying.
House Speaker Michael Madigan, who has overseen a Democratic majority in the Illinois House for 28 of the last 30 years, acknowledges that fixing the pension mess is "extremely important for the future of the state."
"This is the time to step up and help the state of Illinois," he said. But the speaker has urged the governor to support Madigan's own solution, which would save the most money, rather than a rival proposal in the Senate that could stand a better chance of surviving a legal challenge.
In the past 50 years, just three states ? California, Louisiana and Massachusetts ? have had investment ratings as low as Illinois, but all have taken steps to correct it. Quinn's office has begged lawmakers do the same, even as the governor endures criticism that he hasn't done enough to broker a deal.
Abdon Pallasch, Quinn's assistant budget director, said the additional dollars spent to cover interest and the annual pension payment ? $6 billion this year, or almost 20 percent of the state's general-fund budget ? represent money that could be spent to achieve smaller class sizes, hire more police or ease prison overcrowding.
"No more alibis. No more excuses. No more delay. (Lawmakers have) had plenty of time," the governor said Monday. "Running in place is not a way to go when it comes to the pension crisis."
Illinois' interest rates are the result of simple supply and demand: Because fewer investors want to take the risk of buying the state's bonds, the ones who are willing to do so are able to charge more.
Several factors are behind the reluctance. Some investment funds and trusts have rules that prevent them from buying bonds that are approaching "junk" bond status, as Illinois is, Battle said. Many investors don't want any names in their portfolio that have made headlines for negative reasons, like Illinois.
The state has a constitutional provision that guarantees it will make its debt payments, but investors also see cities like Detroit reneging on debts or considering filing for bankruptcy and get jittery, said Richard Ciccarone, managing director and chief research officer at McDonnell Investment Management in Oak Brook, Ill.
Illinois' reputation also hits taxpayers on the local level, even in communities with sound budgets.
Suburban Chicago's DuPage County, a wealthy, conservative-leaning area, is among the 1 percent of counties nationwide with the highest-possible credit rating from all three major ratings agencies. But officials there estimate taxpayers will pay $4 million more in interest over the life of a recent $67 million bond issue than if Illinois had its financial house in order.
In March, Moody's downgraded credit ratings for four public universities, noting that the schools rely heavily on state money for operating expenses. The Illinois Sports Facilities Authority, which constructs and renovates sports stadiums such as Chicago's Soldier Field and U.S. Cellular Field ? home of the Chicago White Sox ? has been downgraded twice since January. Chicago also has seen its rating on million in bonds lowered.
Last year, Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel travelled to the state Capitol to testify in favor of reform, only to see his efforts ? like all the others ? fall flat.
Kathleen Strand, a spokeswoman for Emanuel, said he continues to stress the urgency of the problem, in hopes a solution can be found.
"The truth is," she said, "we have run out of time."
Myers was pulled during Durham?s game with Indianapolis and is expected to join the Rays in Boston on Tuesday for the team?s day/night double-header. The Rays enjoy an off-day tomorrow.
Myers, 22 years old, had hit 14 home runs with an .868 OPS in 288 plate appearances with the Bulls entering today?s game.
In a related move, infielder Ryan Roberts was optioned to Triple-A.
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Public release date: 26-Jun-2013
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