Locusta migratoria feeds on various Poaceae plants but barley. Barley genes related to feeding deterrence may be useful for developing novel resistant crops. We investigated the effects of barley cultivar Betzes, wheat cultivar Chinese Spring (CS), and six barley chromosome disomic addition lines of wheat (2H-7H) on locomotor activity, feeding behavior, survival and development of L. migratoria...

Solar irradiation including ultraviolet (UV) light causes tissue damage by generating reactive free radicals that can be electrophilic or nucleophilic due to unpaired electrons. Little is known about how free radicals induced by natural sunlight are rapidly detected and avoided by animals. We discover that Drosophila Transient Receptor Potential Ankyrin 1 (TRPA1), previously known only as an el...

BACKGROUND Virus-induced deterrence to aphid feeding is believed to promote plant virus transmission by encouraging migration of virus-bearing insects away from infected plants. We investigated the effects of infection by an aphid-transmitted virus, cucumber mosaic virus (CMV), on the interaction of Arabidopsis thaliana, one of the natural hosts for CMV, with Myzus persicae (common names: 'peac...

Given the chemical properties of synthetic pyrethroids, it is probable that compounds, including esfenvalerate, that enter surface waters may become incorporated into aquatic insect food sources. We examined the effect of dietary esfenvalerate uptake in aquatic insects representing different functional feeding groups. We used three field-collected aquatic insect species: A grazing scraper, Ciny...

Experimental huts are part of the WHO process for testing and evaluation of Insecticide Treated Nets (ITN) in semi-field conditions. Experimental Hut Trials (EHTs) mostly focus on two main indicators (i.e., mortality and blood feeding reduction) that serve as efficacy criteria to obtain WHO interim recommendation. However, several other outputs that rely on counts of vectors collected in the hu...

Using bioactivity-guided isolation of bioactive compounds; deacetylviguiestenin, 4-O-caffeoyl-2-methyloxirane-2-carboxylic acid and sandaracopimaradiene-1α,9α-diol were obtained from Tithonia diversifolia (Hemsl.) A. Gray leaves identified using spectroscopic methods. Their feeding deterrence activity against Sitophilus zeamais (Motsch.) including those methanol crude extract, fractions, the es...

Feeding rates of the tintinnid Favella sp. on the dinoflagellate Heterocapsa triquetra were inhibited by a number of dissolved free amino acids (DFAAs), with inhibition inversely proportional to the size of the amino acid side chain. The most inhibitory compounds (valine, cysteine, proline, alanine, and serine) reduced feeding to <20% of the control rate at a concentration of 20 μM. Inhibition ...