The pecan weevil, Curculio caryae (Horn), is a key pest of pecans in the Southeast. Entomopathogenic nematodes have been shown to be pathogenic toward the larval stage of this pest. Before this research, only three species of nematodes had been tested against pecan weevil larvae. In this study, the virulence of the following nine species and 15 strains of nematodes toward fourth-instar pecan we...

Entomopathogenic nematodes (EPNs) are used in biological control of soil insects and show promise in the control of D. speciosa. The objective of this work was to evaluate the potential of native and exotic entomopathogenic nematode isolates in the control of D. speciosa under laboratory and greenhouse conditions. Results showed that all of EPNs caused larval mortality. The most virulent were H...

The behavior of Heterorhabditis zealandica Poinar strain T327 was investigated in the presence of the cabbage maggot, Delia radicum L., and plants that are susceptible to D. radicum infestation. Newly formed puparia and freeze-killed third instar larvae were attractive to infective nematodes. Newly harvested infective nematodes did not respond to the puparia, whereas 1-month-old and 2-month-old...

Photorhabdus are motile Gram-negative bacteria that have a mutualistic association with entomopathogenic Heterorhabditis nematodes. Nematodes vector the bacteria from one insect host to another, while the bacterial symbiont produces toxins and secondary metabolites that kill that the insect host. In this study, we characterize the bacterial symbiont of Heterorhabditis sonorensis, recently disco...

Drosophila suzukii populations remain low in the UK. To date, there have been no reports of widespread damage. Previous research demonstrated that various species of entomopathogenic fungi and nematodes could potentially suppress D. suzukii population development under laboratory trials. However, none of the given species was concluded to be specifically efficient in suppressing D. suzukii. The...

The susceptibility of all nymphal and adult stages of the Acridid grasshopper H. littoralis to different inoculum levels of the insect pathogenic nematodes of the family Heterorahabitidae was recorded. The two tested nematode species were local isolates belong to Heterorhabditis indica (Poinar, Karunakar & David, 1992) (isolate EGB4) and Heterorhabditis bacteriophora (Poinar, 1979) (isolate EKB...

The potential of entomopathogenic nematodes in suppressing T. squalida population on cauliflower from transplanting to harvest was evaluated. Significant reductions in plant infestation percentage and population density (/m) were recorded throughout the plantation seasons, 2011 and 2012 before and after spraying the plants. The percent reduction in numbers/m was the highest in March for the tre...

The susceptibility of adult sunn pest, Eurygaster integriceps Puton (Hemiptera: Scutelleridae), to five local Syrian isolates of Heterorhabditis bacteriophora, Steinernema riobravae Texas, S. carpocapsae C3B, and H. bacteriophora 8-14 strains was evaluated under laboratory conditions. Concentrations of 50, 100, 200, and 400 nematodes per adult were bioassayed; for each nematode concentration, f...

Seven Pakistani strains of entomopathogenic nematodes belonging to the genera Steinernema and Heterorhabditis were tested against last instar and adult stages of the pulse beetle, Callosobruchus chinensis (L.). These nematodes included Steinernema pakistanense Shahina, Anis, Reid and Maqbool (Ham 10 strain); S. asiaticum Anis, Shahina, Reid and Rowe (211 strain); S. abbasi Elawad, Ahmad and Rei...

Photorhabdus luminescens subsp. laumondii HP88 is an entomopathogenic bacterium that forms a symbiotic association with Heterorhabditis nematodes. We report here a 5.27-Mbp draft genome sequence for P. luminescens subsp. laumondii HP88, with a G+C content of 42.4% and containing 4,243 candidate protein-coding genes.