Non-immunological responses are important alternative strategies for animals to deal with pathogens. It has long been recognized that fecundity compensation and production of winged offspring are two common non-immunological responses used by aphids...
Drosophila suzukii is a polyphagous pest of small and soft fruit, originating from Asia, which has spread and established in Europe and the USA. Adults exhibit seasonal phenotypes, i.e., summer morphs (SM) and winter morphs (WM) to cope with fluctuat...
The pea aphid, Acyrthosiphon pisum, is a major pest of legume crops, exhibiting distinct polymorphism in terms of wings and body color. We found that, under crowded conditions, the red morph A. pisum produced more winged offspring than the green morp...
Sclerodermus guani Xiao et Wu, Sclerodermus sichuanensis Xiao, Sclerodermus pupariae Yang et Yao, and Sclerodermus alternatusi Yang are four species of Sclerodermus that have been found in China on longhorn or buprestid beetle hosts. These parasitoid...
Global warming and changes in grass biodiversity increase the vulnerability of agricultural crops to the harmful bird cherry-oat aphid, Rhopalosiphum padi. This study examined 23 wild grass species, wheat, and maize as hosts for R. padi. We studied a...
Parasitoids are currently considered for biological control of the spotted wing drosophila (SWD) in berry crops. Releases of mass-reared parasitoids require the presence of all resources necessary to ensure their effectiveness in the crop system. The...
The use of black soldier fly (BSF) larvae to recycle various organic materials while producing biomass for use as feed is well established. Variety selection is important from the perspective of application. In the current study, morphometric and lif...
The hedgehog grain aphid (HGA), Sipha maydis Passerini (Hemiptera: Aphididae), is a cereal pest in many regions of the world. It was first documented in the United States in 2007, and it has a range that appears to be expanding. Understanding the eff...
Predation risk posed by natural enemies can alter pest performance. In our previous study, we found Menochilus sexmaculatus provides risk cues to melon aphids, resulting in increased numbers of winged aphids. However, the effects of predation risk on...
Aedes aegypti mosquitoes infected with Wolbachia symbionts are now being released into the field to control the spread of pathogenic human arboviruses. Wolbachia can spread throughout vector populations by inducing cytoplasmic incompatibility and can...
Members of the yellow gene family encode conserved Yellow proteins with diverse roles in insect pigmentation, cuticle formation, and reproduction, making them promising targets for RNA interference (RNAi)-mediated pest control strategies. However, li...
Long-term exposure to low concentrations of toxic substances can cause several adverse consequences ranging from molecular to morphological. Sublethal doses may also lead to increased tolerance in the offspring of surviving individuals. One of the co...
The conformal antenna is a precision device installed on the wing of an aircraft, and its components are distributed on a curved surface. Quality detection is required after assembly. In solving the path planning problem for conformal antenna surface...
20 February 2023
Zika virus (ZIKV) shows an enigmatic epidemiological profile in Africa. Despite its frequent detection in mosquitoes, few human cases have been reported. This could be due to the low infectious potential or low virulence of African ZIKV lineages. Thi...
The spotted wing Drosophila, Drosophila suzukii (Ds), became a major economic pest for fruit production since its establishment in Europe and America. Among potential control methods, only classical biological control appears to be a mean of sustaina...
Applying instrumental insemination in closely related honey bee colonies often leads to frequent lethality of offspring causing colony collapse. This is due to the peculiarities of honey bee reproductive biology, where the complementary sex determina...
The cooperative multiple task assignment problem (CMTAP) is an NP-hard combinatorial optimization problem. In this paper, CMTAP is to allocate multiple heterogeneous fixed-wing UAVs to perform a suppression of enemy air defense (SEAD) mission on mult...
The cotton mealybug, Phenacoccus solenopsis, is an invasive pest that can cause massive damage to many host plants of agricultural importance. P. solenopsis is highly polyphagous, and shows extreme sexual dimorphism between males and females. The fun...
Heavy metal pollution, particularly cadmium (Cd) contamination in water and farmland, might accumulate in natural insect enemies through the food chain. In response to this heavy metal stress, natural enemy insects adapt by altering their metabolism...
(1) The tropical swallowtail moth Lyssa zampa received much public attention during its years of mass emergence in Singapore and Southeast Asia. However, despite its prominence, little is known about its population demographics and spatial ecology. T...
The spotted wing drosophila, Drosophila suzukii is an injurious polyphagous pest threatening worldwide soft fruit production. Its high adaptability to new colonized environments, short life cycle, and wide host range are supporting its rapid spread....
Insects have a robust capacity to produce offspring for propagation, and the reproductive events of female insects have been achieved at the molecular and physiological levels via regulatory gene pathways. However, the roles of MicroRNAs (miRNAs) in...
Dietary inclusion of the vitamin D3 (D3) metabolite, 25-hydroxycholecalciferol (25OHD3), was demonstrated to improve broiler growth performance and breast meat yield. To assess the effect of combined maternal (MDIET) and post-hatch (PDIET) dietary 25...