Piwi-interacting RNAs (piRNAs) is a class of small non-coding RNAs (sncRNAs) of 28-29 nucleotides in length, poorly conserved across species. The first function associated with the piRNAs was the repression of transposable elements (TE) expression. But, since that time, more piRNA functions have been discovered. They are not only repressors of TEs but also act as regulators of the expression of some mRNAs. A better understanding of the role of piRNAs is required and we focused our attention on their role in insect oogenesis. Using the cockroach Blattella germanica as experimental model, we studied the expression pattern of a piRNA specific to this cockroach (Bger_piRNA-40669). We analyzed the Bger_piRNA-40669 expression in adult ovaries during the first gonadotropic cycle, and to further study its function, we upregulated its expression using a chemically synthesized piRNA 2’-O-methylated at the 3' end and phosphorylated at the 5' end. We found that an increase of Bger_piRNA-40669 in young adult females determines a shortening of the gonadotropic cycle, although embryogenesis was not affected. Moreover, our results show that Bger_piRNA-40669 has a specific function regarding oocyte development in B. germanica.

The essential oil extracted from sage leaves and stems by steam extraction was analyzed by CGMS. The results obtained indicate high α thuyone (24.27%), monoterpenes (66.66%), and sesquiterpenes (19.04%) contents. This essential oil was tested on the eggs of Callosobruchus maculatus (Coleoptera: Bruchidae), a stored foods pest, with different doses: 4, 8, 12 and 16 μl/L of air.The hatching rate of eggs, the average number of eggs evolved into larvae, and the average number of emergences were estimated by analysis of variance. The study showed that sage essential oil had an impact on the evaluated parameters. Indeed, in the control lots, 97. 25% ± 2.5 of the eggs hatched, while 96.75% ± 1.25 evolved into larvae. The number of emergence is 96.5% ± 1.72, while the batches treated at the 16 μl/L dose of essential oil air, yielded the following results respectively: 33.5 ± 4.123; 24 ± 2,38 and 19,5 ± 3,109. These results are promising for the development of a bioinsecticide based on sage essential oil.

Arthropod vectors of plant pathogens cause enormous economic losses and are a fundamental challenge for sustainable food production. To develop more effective control of plant pathogens and pests, data pertaining to disease systems need to be consolidated, made accessible, searchable and amenable to data mining. The AgriVectors™ platform is an open access and comprehensive resource for growers, researchers and industry who are working on insect-vectored plant pathogens. The portal connects established public repositories with ‘pathosystem-specific’ data repositories. Current resources include the Asian citrus psyllid, the potato psyllid and the bacterial pathogens they transmit to citrus and Solanaceous plants. Expansion to include resources for other important Hemipteran vectors (whiteflies, leafhoppers, planthoppers, scale, mealybugs etc.), thrips. and mites is planned. There is also the capacity to set up private and protected databases for protected access as needed. Linking visual data with gene expression profiles using 3D microCT technology will expand the understanding and use of diverse and complex data. The AgriVectors portal will extend this model beyond gene-centric omics-data to the broader Systems Biology Pathosystem-wide information, with integrated pest management, behavior, plant health, soil health and climate data so that users can rapidly incorporate phenotyping information from greenhouse and field trials. This will establish a foundation for more effective identification and development of solutions for the control of plant diseases. AgriVectors portal creates a user-friendly platform that fosters interdisciplinary collaborations among researchers of diverse plant pathosystems, to simplify data sharing, ideas, and technologies to develop solutions for managing plant diseases.

Seasonal variation of photoperiod and temperature often leads to a latitudinal gradient in season-dependent behavior. The parasitic wasp Nasonia vitripennis exhibits a latitudinal cline in photoperiodic diapause induction. Allelic variation of the clock gene period was shown to be associated with this behavioral cline. In addition, circadian expression of the clock genes period (per), cryptochrome-2 (cry-2), clock (clk), and cycle (cyc) shows photoperiodical and latitude-of-origin associated variation. Apart from these clock genes, a Genome Wide Association Study revealed five possible non-clock effector genes for diapause induction: Helicase DDX28, APC11, SIPA1L1, OR175, and CBFA2TI. Here we use sequence data of isogenic N. vitripennis lines from different latitudes to screen for variation in these additional clock and non-clock candidate genes for photoperiodic diapause induction. Polymorphisms in cry-2, cycle and SIPA1L1 showed a haplotype distribution according to latitude-of-origin. Our results support a role of clock gene and SIPA1L1 variation in the difference of diapausing brood production of the northern and southern lines and hints at different selection pressures for diapause effector genes in high end low latitudes.

Many invasive insect species that have moved from eastern areas, among them Drosophila suzukii Matsumura (Diptera: Drosophilidae), also named spotted wings drosophila (SWD), is becoming a serious threat to the cultivation and marketing of thin-skinned red fruits. The SWD, endemic to Southeast Asia, have been introduced in North America and Europe a decade ago. The control of the diffusion of SWD, is carried out with various methods, based on different strategies, but the use of pesticides is still extremely common. Possible alternatives to chemical pesticides are biological control methods based on bioinsecticides. Up to now, biological control has been performed mainly through the application of single bioinsecticides, but the major limitation is that they produce appreciable results only in quite long time, so it would be desirable to obtain a significant mortality in the shortest time of treatment; the use of targeted combinations of more bioinsecticides, could represent an improvement in the control techniques of D. suzukii.In this research we carried out a preliminary investigation on the effects of administration of Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt) with Xenorhabdus nematophila (Xn) isolated from Steinernema carpocapsae, or with Xn secretions, on D. suzukii early instars larvae. Firstly, we assayed the lethal effects of individual bioinsecticides administration, then we evaluated a possible increase in efficacy induced by their combination. Moreover, we have analyzed the morphology of the host gut to evaluate a possible damage caused by combination Bt-Xn after oral uptake. From the results obtained in the laboratory, it emerges that biological control techniques carried out by means of bioinsecticide combinations, can improve the action, therefore the effectiveness, of these methods, which could subsequently be tested and applied in the field.

Invasion of banana leaf roller Erionota spp. has been noticed in banana plantations of Malabar region of Kerala a part of Western Ghat, India. Researchers currently proposed that banana leaf roller E. thrax and E. torus occur together in Kerala and many have treated them as a single species. Currently there is no published information regarding whether, one or both the species of Erionota coexist during the seasonal outbreak of banana skipper. Since the early stages of E. thrax and E. torus cannot be distinguished easily, and as they are common pests of banana, morphological identification of species is difficult. Species level identification is essential in the implementation of effective biological control programmes to manage this pest. This study is aimed to use DNA barcoding to confirm the invasive Erionota species from Malabar region of Kerala. The COI sequences of the banana skipper confirms the existence of E. torus species in the infested areas and all the parasitoid species collected during the course of study where that of E.torus .The life cycle and invasiveness and seasonal fluctuations were also studied. Adult lay small creamy yellow eggs on the under surface of banana leaves. After hatching the various larval instars cause severe damage to leaves by feeding and rolling. This prevents traditional use of leaves, lowers banana yields, fruit maturity and the bunch size. The invasiveness was more during monsoon and post monsoon seasons, ranging from 10 to 40% and up to 50% loss of plant leaf area.

The giant pine scale (GPS), Marchalina hellenica (Hemiptera, Margarodidae), is native in Greece and Turkey, where it is not considered a pest of Pinus spp.. However, in 2014 GPS was accidentally introduced in Australia and soon its population increased dramatically causing significant damage to Pinus radiata plantations. The silver fly, Neoleucopis kartliana (Diptera, Chamaemyiidae) was found as the most abundant predator of GPS. To assess the potential use of this species in a classical biological control program, GPS-infested branches were collected from five different areas of northern Greece and examined in the laboratory to study its biology and attempt to rear it.

Bees are the major pollinators of agricultural crops and due to numerous factors, the global
bee population is declining drastically. Identification and extraction of numerous body features of bees can allow us to understand the population dynamics and bee-hive health of an agricultural area. Morphological key-based bee studies are well established procedures for these tasks, which are time consuming and need critical knowledge about different bees species. Recently, numerous machine learning (ML) methods have been implemented on numerous insect species, but there is a scarcity of deep learning models for morphological studies of bees. In our current study, we applied ML methods to extract variants of class activation maps that visually display distinguishing morphological features of bees. We sourced an image data set of eleven different species of Bumblebee (Bombus sp.), Honey bee (Apis sp.) and Carpenter bee (Xylocopa sp.) from iNaturalist, curated and fine-tuned against fifteen state-of-the-art image classification models. An accuracy of 93.66% was obtained with a ResNest101e model, and including data augmentation improves the performance to the highest accuracy of 94.27%. We also compared the ML extracted visual features with traditional morphological key-based features and showed existing unsupervised ML models are error prone in numerous instances due to their focus on overall features, whereas manual methods benefited by focusing only on the main discriminating body features, showing a potential scope of improvement the existing models. Overall, our model will be implicated in bee-morphology based tasks of apiculture, such as distinguishing between healthy and parasitic bees, and classification tasks of similar insect species.

Abstracts: Among the many tropical fruits, mango (Mangifera indica L.) has been identified as the most important from socio-cultural, commercial and environmental aspects. It is grown in more than 100 countries. Aulacuspis tubercularis Newsteed (Homoptera: Diaspididae) commonly known as white mango scale, is a serious insect pest of mango in many mango growing countries including Ethiopia. Aulacuspis tubercularis was detected in Ethiopia a decade ago. With no effective control method, the pest spread the whole country, resulting in 50-100% crop losses. The current study was conducted to establish the efficacy of aqueous neem, Azadirachta indica L. (A. Juss) leaf powder in the management of A. tubercularis under field condition. Field experiments were conducted at Arjo Gudetu and Uke experimental sites of East Wollega zone. The treatments were different spray concentrations prepared from aqueous A. indica leaf powder. These were 0.05, 0.1 and 0.15mg/ml of water. Treatments started after complete infestation was observed and continued for three times at 10 day-intervals. The experiment was laid out in a randomized complete block design in four replications. Mortality count was recorded each treatment applications. The results showed that aqueous A. indica leaf powder at 0.15 mg/ml significantly (p<0.05) reduced the population of A. tubercularis at both experimental sites. Male adults and nymphs were more affected than the females. The use of aqueous A. indica leaf powder led to significant population reduction of A. tubercularis and its impact. Hence, the product can be recommended for the management of A. tubercularis.

The invasive armyworm, Spodoptera frugiperda (J.E. Smith) (Lepidoptera: Noctuidae) is a key pest of maize that has invaded Pakistan causing severe damage and yield losses. The current investigation was directed to visualize fall armyworm infestation on eight of the different maize varieties. Correlation analysis of FAW infestation with weather factors revealed that temperature (max., mean, and min.) had a weak positive effect on fall armyworm infestation (r = 0.139, r = 0.149 and r = 0.159, respectively) while relative humidity played a weak negative (r = -0.104) role in FAW population build-up. A seasonal mean infestation of the pest found maximum on Malka-16 which was statistically higher than any other variety. The lowest invasion was recorded on the P1543 Hybrid (P < 0.05). Similarly, the infestation was significantly highest in the 1^st half of November (P < 0.05), a decline in pest population build-up was seen in December possibly by cold weather.