BACKGROUND Fungi are key dietary resources for many animals. Fungi, in consequence, have evolved sophisticated physical and chemical defences for repelling and impairing fungivores. Expression of such defences may entail costs, requiring diversion of energy and nutrients away from fungal growth and reproduction. Inducible resistance that is mounted after attack by fungivores may allow fungi to ...

Recent advances in our understanding of induced responses in plants and their regulation, brought about by a revolution in molecular biology, have re-focused attention on the potential exploitation of endogenous resistance mechanisms for crop protection. The future goal of crop biotechnology is thus to engineer a durable, multimechanistic resistance to insect pests through an understanding of t...

Antibiosis-based resistance to two insect pests of rice, Nilaparvata lugens (Stål) (Hemiptera: Delphacidae) and Marasmia patnalis Bradley (Lepidoptera: Pyralidae), was compared in 11 F1 hybrids and their parental lines. Our objective was to determine whether hybrids show heterosis (hybrid vigor) for insect resistance or susceptibility. Heterosis is defined as the amount by which a hybrid exceed...

Host plant resistance assumes central role in pest management in order to increase production and productivity of the crops. Conventional breeding in conjunction with molecular techniques and transgenic approaches have a great promise to reduce pest associated crop losses, and accelerate the progress in developing cultivars with resistance to insects. Although, considerable progress has been ma...

Antibiosis-based resistance to two insect pests of rice, Nilaparvata lugens (Stål) (Hemiptera: Delphacidae) and Marasmia patnalis Bradley (Lepidoptera: Pyralidae), was compared in 11 F1 hybrids and their parental lines. Our objective was to determine whether hybrids show heterosis (hybrid vigor) for insect resistance or susceptibility. Heterosis is deÞned as the amount by which a hybrid exceeds...

Cotton (Gossypium hirsutum L.)  is an important fiber crop in Iran, cultivated on 150000-200000 ha of land.  In Iran the estimated loss due to the insect pest is more than 30%. Traditionally, pests are controlled by 10-12 times spraying per growing season of environmentally harmful chemical insecticides (e.g. endosulfan and/or methosystox). In order to produce transgenic cotton resistance to in...

Insect vectors and insect-borne plant viruses seriously endanger the safety of agricultural production. An insecticide is one main methods to prevent virus transmission. However, curious relationship between resistance insect arboviruses has been less studied. In this study, effect Tomato chlorosis (ToCV) on Bemisia tabaci MED was It found that detoxification cytochrome P450, glutathione S-tran...

Proteinase inhibitors (PIs) are anti-metabolic proteins, which interfere with the digestive process of insects. It is one of the important defence strategies existing in plants against predators. The use of the plant-derived PI genes for developing insect-resistant transgenic crops has come of age. Several transgenic plants expressing PIs have been created and these plants have shown enhanced r...

BACKGROUND Growers have enthusiastically embraced crops genetically modified to express Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt) proteins for insect control because they provide excellent protection from key damaging insect pests around the world. Bt crops also offer superior environmental and health benefits while increasing grower income. However, insect resistance development is an important concern for ...

Forests with higher tree diversity are often assumed to be more resistant to insect herbivores but whether this effect depends on climatic conditions is so far poorly understood. In particular, a forest's resistance to herbivory may depend on mean annual temperature (MAT) as a key driver of plant and insect phenology. We carried out a global meta-analysis on regression coefficients between tree...