Several pest insects of human and livestock habitations are known as vectors of Salmonella enterica; however, the role of plant-feeding insects as vectors of S. enterica to agricultural crops remains unexamined. Using a hemipteran insect pest-lettuce system, we investigated the potential for transmission and retention of S. enterica. Specifically, Macrosteles quadrilineatus and Myzus persicae i...

Methyl bromide is used to control insects as a space fumigant in flour and feed mills and ship holds, as a product fumigant for some fruit and cereals, and for general quarantine purposes. Methyl bromide acts rapidly, controlling insects in less than 48 h in space fumigations, and it has a wide spectrum of activity, controlling not only insects but also nematodes and plant-pathogenic microbes. ...

RNA interference (RNAi) methods for insects are often limited by problems with double-stranded (ds) RNA delivery, which restricts reverse genetics studies and the development of RNAi-based biocides. We therefore delegated to insect symbiotic bacteria the task of: (i) constitutive dsRNA synthesis and (ii) trauma-free delivery. RNaseIII-deficient, dsRNA-expressing bacterial strains were created f...

Monitoring of pest insects is an important part of the integrated pest management. It aims to provide information about pest insect abundance at a given location. This includes data collection, usually using traps, and their subsequent analysis and/or interpretation. However, interpretation of trap count (number of insects caught over a fixed time) remains a challenging problem. First, an incre...

In 1997 corn, cotton and potato cultivars that produce insecticidal proteins were grown on more than five million acres of US farmland. The acreage dedicated to these cultivars is likely to increase dramatically in the next twoto-five years. The use of these cultivars decreases the use of broad spectrum insecticides, especially in cotton and potato production. The toxin gene is derived from the...

The extent of damage to crop plants from pest insects depends on the foraging behaviour of the insect's feeding stage. Little is known, however, about the genetic and molecular bases of foraging behaviour in phytophagous pest insects. The foraging gene (for), a candidate gene encoding a PKG-I, has an evolutionarily conserved function in feeding strategies. Until now, for had never been studied ...

Pests in the home are a health risk because they can be vectors for infectious disease, contribute to allergies and cause damage to buildings. The aims of this study were to record which categories of pests were reported in homes and to use a social cognition model, the health belief model, to investigate which psychological factors influence householders' intentions to control pests. An online...

Lepidoptera comprise some of the most devastating herbivorous pest insects worldwide. One of the most promising novel pest control strategies is exploiting the RNA interference (RNAi) mechanism to target essential genes for knockdown and incite toxic effects in the target species without harming other organisms in the ecosystem. However, many insects are refractory to oral RNAi, often due to ra...