Abstract The Japanese beetle Popillia japonica is an invasive alien species recently introduced and established in Northern Italy. Adult beetles are very polyphagous feed on vines, fruit trees, forest crops, vegetables, ornamental wild plant species. Eggs usually laid by females moist grassland the summer, singly or small clusters. Larvae roots may be transported soil of plants for planting gro...

Mustard (Brassica and Sinapis spp.) green manures tilled into the soil preceding potato crops act as biofumigants that are toxic to plant–parasitic nematodes, providing an alternative to synthetic soil fumigants. However, it is not known whether mustard green manures also kill beneficial entomopathogenic nematodes (EPNs) that contribute to the control of pest insects. We used sentinel insect pr...

Most medium formulations for improving culture of entomopathogenic nematodes (EPN) based on protein sources have used enriched media like animal feed such as dried egg yolk, lactalbumin, and liver extract, among other ingredients. Most results, however, showed unstable yields and longer production time. Many of the results do not show the detailed parameters of fermentation. Soy flour, cotton s...

We determined virulence of seven Heterorhabditis bacteriophora strain GPS11 inbred lines possessing superior infective juvenile longevity, and heat and ultra violet radiation tolerance against white grubs Popillia japonica and Cyclocephala borealis. At 1 and 2 weeks after treatment, inbred line A2 was significantly more virulent towards P. japonica compared to the parent strain GPS11 and inbred...

We report the first cDNA-sequencing project of the entomopathogenic nematode, Heterorhabditis bacteriophora. A total of 1246 expressed sequence tags (ESTs) were generated by random sequencing of clones from a cDNA library of the infective juvenile stage. The ESTs were annotated resulting in 1072 useful ESTs that were categorized into functional categories according to Kyoto Encyclopedia of Gene...

Virulence of commercial strains entomopathogenic nematode (EPN) Steinernema carpocapsae (Weiser), feltiae Filipjev and Heterorhabditis bacteriophora Poinar (Rhabditida: Steinernematidae, Heterorhabditidae), were tested on young females Pulvinaria hydrangeae Steinweden, Partenolecanium corni (Bouché) Coccus pseudomagnoliarum (Kuwana) (Hemiptera, Coccidae) a native strain H. was citricola scale, ...