To cope with pathogen and insect attacks, plants develop different mechanisms of defence, in both direct (physical and chemical) and indirect ways (attractive volatiles to entomophagous beneficials). Plants are then able to express traits that facilitate “top-down” control of pests by attracting herbivore predators. Here we investigate the indirect defence mechanism of potato plants by analyzin...

There is growing interest in biological control as a sustainable and environmentally friendly way to control pest insects. Aphids are among the most detrimental agricultural pests worldwide, and parasitoid wasps are frequently employed for their control. The use of asexual parasitoids may improve the effectiveness of biological control because only females kill hosts and because asexual populat...

Some experiments indicate the ability of coccinellids to significantly suppress aphid abundance. Exclusion of predators by caging aphid-infested plants has repeatedly resulted in higher aphid populations and greater aphid population growth rates. However, aphidophagous coccinellids have never proved effective in controlling aphid populations in the field. To resolve this apparent contradiction,...

cotton aphid, aphis frangulae gossypii glover, is a major pest of cucumber in iran. one of the important parasitoids playing role in population control of this pest in the fields and greenhouses is lysiphlebus fabarum marshall. in this study, we investigated sensitivity of different instars of cotton aphids and pupal stage of l. fabarum to field recommended and half-recommended concentration of...

The soybean aphid (Aphis glycines Matsumura) is native to China and Japan, and was a new pest in Iowa in 2000. Aphid numbers were high in the 2001, but in 2002 and 2003, aphids appeared to be less of a problem. This small, yellow aphid has distinct black cornicles (“tailpipes”) on the tip of the abdomen and develops colonies on soybean plants as winged and wingless forms. Aphids feed through pi...

the performance and flight behavior of the potato aphid macrosiphum euphorbiae was studied on the 'superior-bt' line transgenic for the cryiiia toxin of bacillus thuringien-sis (bt), resistant to the colorado potato beetle; and non transformed 'superior' line which served as control. mortality of the treated aphids was negligible and potato lines did not affect the development time of m. euphor...

Aphids are economically important pests that display exceptional variation in host range. The determinants of diverse aphid host ranges are not well understood, but it is likely that molecular interactions are involved. With significant progress being made towards understanding host responses upon aphid attack, the mechanisms underlying non-host resistance remain to be elucidated. Here, we inve...