The rice brown planthopper (BPH; Nilaparvata lugens) is a serious pest of rice crops throughout Asia, damaging plants both through its feeding behavior and by acting as a virus vector. Like many homopteran pests of crops, it is primarily a phloem feeder, abstracting sap via specially adapted mouthparts. An artificial diet bioassay system for this pest was developed to allow the effects of poten...

Induced resistance responses, including fungal endophyte-mediated resistance, have been well studied in both agricultural crops and grass systems. Yet, the effect of these processes and symbionts in forest trees is poorly known. Fungal endophytes have been found in all conifer forest systems examined to date and have been hypothesised to be involved in resistance-mediated responses. However, in...

Mutual relationship between endophytic fungi and some gramineuos plants is one of the recently known host-microbe interactions. Endophytic fungi are classified in class Ascomycetes, order Hypocreales, tribe Balansieae and mostly genus Neotyphodium. They are transferred into the progeny via maternal stock and have many benificial effects to their host plants, such as resistance to pests and dise...

The growing demand for reducing chemical inputs in agriculture and increased resistance to insecticides have provided great impetus to the development of alternative forms of insect-pest control. Myco-biocontrol offers an attractive alternative to the use of chemical pesticides. Myco-biocontrol agents are naturally occurring organisms which are perceived as less damaging to the environment. The...

Poplar improvement efforts are directed at improving tree traits such as rapid early growth, yield, and fiber quality. The goal of improvement programs is to increase resistance to diseases that have the potential to reduce yields or kill trees. Selection, breeding, and testing for poplar disease resistance are hampered by the long generation time of trees, the difficulty in identifying and cap...

melon ladybeetle, epilachna chrysomelina (f.), is one of the key insect pests of cucurbit crops in asia and north africa. the development and reproduction of e. chrysomelina were studied on watermelon, snake cucumber, cucumber and melon under laboratory conditions. mean total life cycle from egg to adult female was 21.3, 21.7, 26.0, and 21.3 days on the mentioned host plants respectively. mean ...

Background: Lepidopteran and coleopteran species are the most important pests in maize. They can be controlled using genetically modified (GM) crops expressing insecticidal Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt) proteins. The long-term success of this technology demands a pest resistance management. Important information for the successful management of resistance is the baseline susceptibility of the dif...

We consider a mathematical model for a host-pathogen interaction where the host population is split into two categories: those susceptible to disease and those resistant to disease. Since the model was motivated by studies on insect populations, we consider a discrete-time model to reflect the discrete generations which are common among insect species. Whether an individual is born susceptible ...

The use of synthetic insecticides may cause failures in the biological control insect pests due to undesired side effects on natural enemies and rapid evolution insecticide resistance agroecosystems. Residues neurotoxic can interfere with recognition chemical cues used by find pests. We investigated sub-lethal concentrations pyrethroid lambda-cyhalothrin interaction between aphid parasitoid was...