BACKGROUND The olfactory system plays an important role in the recognition of leaf volatiles during the search of folivore insects for a suitable plant host. For example, volatiles emitted by mulberry leaves trigger chemotaxis behavior in the silkworms Bombyx mori, and as a consequence, they preferentially reside on and consume mulberry leaves. Here, we aimed to identify natural chemoattractant...

Mulberry leaves have commonly been utilized in China as a herbal medicine for the treatment of diabetes for thousands of years. To evaluate the quality, an ultra-high performance liquid chromatography coupled with quadrupole time of flight mass spectrometry (UPLC-Q-TOF/MS) method was developed for identification of polyhydroxylated alkaloids with α-glucosidase inhibitor activity in mulberry lea...

South East Asia pest thrips species, Thrips parvispinus (Karny), is a serious pest on a number of agricultural and horticultural crops in a number of plant families. Based on an integrated approach of morphology and DNA barcoding, invasion of this serious pest is reported first time from India on papaya plantations. Molecular data have corroborated with the morphological identification. Haploty...

Thrips are key pests of mango, Mangifera indica (L.), in Malaysia, including the Northern Peninsular. As Penang has year-round equatorial climate and high of rainfall, the populations of thrips may be subject to variations in composition and size. With a goal of developing an appropriate control strategy, a survey was conducted in Penang to determine species composition and abundance in relati...

BACKGROUND The efficacy of systemic applications of imidacloprid for the management of avocado thrips and avocado lace bug was determined in field trials. Following insecticide treatment by chemigation, leaves of appropriate age for each insect were sampled over a 6 month period and used for bioassays. Imidacloprid residues were measured by ELISA in leaves used for bioassays to determine concen...

To elucidate the effects of cultivar and harvest month on the phenolic content and antioxidant activity of mulberry leaves, four major phenolics, including chlorogenic acid (ChA), benzoic acid (BeA), rutin (Rut) and astragalin (Ast), were quantified using an HPLC-UV method. Leaves from six mulberry cultivars, collected from April to October, were analyzed. The antioxidant activity of mulberry l...

Apart from being fed to silkworms in sericulture, the ecologically important Mulberry plant has been used for traditional medicine in Asian countries as well as in manufacturing wine, food, and beverages. Germplasm analysis among Mulberry cultivars originating from South Korea is crucial in the plant breeding program for cultivar development. Hence, the genetic deviations and relations among 8 ...

Plant defenses inducible by herbivorous arthropods can determine performance of subsequent feeding herbivores. We investigated how infestation of tomato (Solanum lycopersicum) plants with the Western flower thrips (Frankliniella occidentalis) alters host plant suitability and foraging decisions of their conspecifics. We explored the role of delayed-induced jasmonic acid (JA)-mediated plant defe...

Citrus thrips, Scirtothrips citri (Moulton), is a plant-feeding pest most widely recognized for causing damage to citrus and mango fruits. This insect has broadened its host range to become a significant pest of commercial blueberries grown in the San Joaquin Valley of California. We evaluated Beauveria bassiana (Balsamo) for control of citrus thrips in blueberries grown under two watering regi...

Caliothrips phaseoli, a phytophagous insect, detects and responds to solar ultraviolet-B radiation (UV-B; lambda <or= 315 nm) under field conditions. A highly specific mechanism must be present in the thrips visual system in order to detect this narrow band of solar radiation, which is at least 30 times less abundant than the UV-A (315-400 nm), to which many insects are sensitive. We constructe...