For many decades, Botswana has been engaged in various malaria control activities that involved programmes that focused on the elimination of the malaria vector Anopheles ara‐ biensis, by using DDT and pyrethroids. Despite the numerous and continuous application of these insecticides, studies have shown that there is susceptibility of this vector to DDT and pyrethroids in Botswana. Natural inse...

A horse-baited trap and a mobile insect sorting table were used to conduct an arthropod survey for potential vectors of Potomac Horse Fever in southern Maryland and northern Virginia. The trap and table worked effectively for the live collection and sorting of haemophagous Diptera such as: Simulium spp., Stomoxys calcitrans, Musca autumnalis, Tabanus spp. and Chrysops spp. during the diurnal co...

Many of the most dangerous human diseases are transmitted by insect vectors. After decades of repeated insecticide use, all of these vector species have demonstrated the capacity to evolve resistance to insecticides. Insecticide resistance is generally considered to undermine control of vector-transmitted diseases because it increases the number of vectors that survive the insecticide treatment...

Background The human microbiome project [1] is the first systematic and large-scale survey of microbial communities present in a eukaryotic metagenome. The availability of low-cost high-throughput next-generation sequencing technologies that enable us to sequence eukaryotes to a high depth of coverage presents an opportunity for in silico discovery of endosymbionts. We describe a method for min...

We established a laboratory colony of Culex pipiens mosquitoes from eggs collected in Colorado and discovered that mosquitoes in the colony are naturally infected with Culex flavivirus (CxFV), an insect-specific flavivirus. In this study we examined transmission dynamics of CxFV and effects of persistent CxFV infection on vector competence for West Nile virus (WNV). We found that vertical trans...

Triatoma dimidiata is an important vector of Chagas disease in Guatemala. To help understand the biology and population dynamics of the insect, we estimated the number of full sibling families living in one house. Forty one families with an average size of 2.17 individuals were detected using random amplification of polymorphic DNA-polymerase chain reaction genetic markers. This result suggests...

Cochineal is the name of both crimson or carmine dye and the cochineal insect (Dactylopius coccus), a scale insect from which the dye is derived. There are other species in the genus Dactylopius which can be used to produce cochineal extract, but they are extremely difficult to distinguish from D. coccus, even for expert taxonomists, and the latter scientific name (and the use of the term "coch...

1 Insect Pest Control Laboratory, Joint FAO/IAEA Programme of Nuclear Techniques in Food and Agriculture, Vienna, Austria, 2 Ministry of Agriculture, Natural Resources and Environment, Zanzibar, Tanzania, 3 Vector and Vector Borne Diseases Research Institute, Tanga, Tanzania, 4 Insect Pest Control Section, Joint FAO/IAEA Programme of Nuclear Techniques in Food and Agriculture, Vienna, Austria, ...

Rice stripe virus (RSV), its vector insect (small brown planthopper, SBPH) and climatic conditions in Jiangsu, China were monitored between 2002 and 2012 to determine key biotic and abiotic factors driving epidemics of the disease. Average disease severity, disease incidence and viruliferous rate of SBPH peaked in 2004 and then gradually decreased. Disease severity of RSV was positively correla...

Organisms from bacteria to humans have evolved under predictable daily environmental cycles owing to the Earth's rotation. This strong selection pressure has generated endogenous circadian clocks that regulate many aspects of behaviour, physiology and metabolism, anticipating and synchronising internal time-keeping to changes in the cyclical environment. In haematophagous insect vectors the cir...