Following the increasing international phasing out of methyl bromide for quarantine purposes, the development of alternative treatments for timber pests becomes imperative. The international accreditation of new quarantine treatments requires verification standards that give confidence in the effectiveness of a treatment. Probit-9 mortality is a standard for treatment effectiveness that has its...

ABSTRACT- Elm leaf beetle (ELB), Xanthoga leruca luteola (Muller), is considered as one of the most important and destructive phytophagous pests of Ulmus species in the north of Iran. In the current study, the effects of three host plants including Ulmus carpinifolia, U. carpinifolia var. umbraculifera, and Zelkova carpinifolia, on feeding indices and biochemical processes of ELB were examined ...

Coffee plants host several herbivorous species, but only few are considered pests. Brazil is the largest coffee producer of world, and two key pests crop in country leaf miner Leucoptera coffeella berry borer Hypothenemus hampei . However, some regions or on specific conditions, species mites scales can also cause damage to plants. Conventional management relies chemical pesticides, it most com...

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

Transgenic crops producing insecticidal toxins from Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt) are widely used to control pests, but their benefits will be lost if pests evolve resistance. The mandated high-dose/refuge strategy for delaying pest resistance requires planting refuges of toxin-free crops near Bt crops to promote survival of susceptible pests. We report that pollen-mediated gene flow up to 31 m f...

The Cry family of Bacillus thuringiensis insecticidal and nematicidal proteins constitutes a valuable source of environmentally benign compounds for the control of insect pests and disease agents. An understanding of Cry toxin resistance at a molecular level will be critical to the long-term utility of this technology; it may also shed light on basic mechanisms used by other bacterial toxins th...

Landscape-scale intensification of individual crops and pesticide use that is associated with this intensification is an emerging, environmental problem that is expected to have unequal effects on pests with different lifecycles, host ranges, and dispersal abilities. We investigate if intensification of a single crop in an agroecosystem has a direct effect on insecticide resistance in a special...

The refuge strategy is used widely for delaying evolution of insect resistance to transgenic crops that produce Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt) toxins. Farmers grow refuges of host plants that do not produce Bt toxins to promote survival of susceptible pests. Many modelling studies predict that refuges will delay resistance longest if alleles conferring resistance are rare, most resistant adults ma...

Potato, Solanum tuberosum L., is one of the world’s principal food crops. Important potato insect pests include Colorado potato beetle, Leptinotarsa decemlineata Say, potato tuberworm, Phthorimaea operculella (Zeller), and aphids, especially as they transmit potato leafroll virus and potato virus Y. Management of insect pests of potato relies almost entirely on chemical insecticides. Potato bre...