the diamondback moth, plutella xylostella (linnaeus, 1758) (lep.: plutellidae) is the most destructive insect pest of crucifer plants throughout the world. in order to study its seasonal population fluctuation, sampling was conducted in the cauliflower fields of south of tehran from late may until october 2011. one hectare cauliflower field in the middle of a large field was randomly selected i...

Suitability of plant tissues as food for insects varies from plant to plant. In lepidopteran insects, fitness is largely dependent on the host-finding ability of the females. Existing studies have suggested that polyphagous lepidopterans preferentially select certain host plant species for oviposition. However, the mechanisms for host recognition and selection have not been fully elucidated. Fo...

BACKGROUND Surveys of host plants of insect galls have been performed in different regions of Brazil. The knowledge of species of host plants of insect galls is fundamental to further studies of plant-galling insect interactions. However, a list of host plant species of gall-inducing insects has not yet been compiled for the flora of the Midwest Region of Brazil. NEW INFORMATION We provide a ...

Host shifts by herbivorous insects have contributed substantially to current patterns of association between insects and plants. Despite their evolutionary and agricultural interest, however, the plant traits that predispose insects to colonize some plants instead of others are poorly understood. To examine whether ancestral and novel hosts share similar chemical oviposition stimulants that wou...

Gall-inducing insects have especially intimate interactions with their host plants and generally show great specificity with regard to both the host-plant species and the organ (e.g. flower, leaf) galled. However, the relative roles of shifts between host species and between host-plant organs in the diversification of gall-inducers are uncertain. We employ a novel and general maximum-likelihood...

Recent research on the treehopper tribe Telamonini has focused on their classification and Nearctic distribution but little has been published on their biology, including detailed information on their host plants as well as data on their nymphal stage. Any studies including host plant data have emphasized adult records (often unreliable due to their movements), largely ignoring the nymphs, whic...

aphid parasitoids (braconidae: aphidiinae) in several localities of kerman province, southeastern iran were studied between 2007 and 2008 and 20 species belonging to eight genera were identified. parasitoids were reared from 25 field-collected aphid species occurring on 31 host plant species. in the present study, 83 parasitoid-aphid-plant associations, their aphid hosts, and the respective hos...

Host plant shifting of phytophagous insects can lead to the formation of host associated differentiation and ultimately speciation. In some cases, host plant specificity alone acts as a nearly complete pre-mating isolating barrier among insect populations. We here test whether effective pre-mating isolation and host-independent behavioral isolation have evolved under the condition of extreme ho...

Twenty years ago, scientists began to recognize that parental effects are one of the most important influences on progeny phenotype. Consequently, it was postulated that herbivorous insects could produce progeny that are acclimatized to the host plant experienced by the parents to improve progeny fitness, because host plants vary greatly in quality and quantity, and can thus provide important c...

We documented one of the most species-rich assemblages of tropical rain-forest Auchenorrhyncha, comprising 402 phloemand xylem-feeding species, by sampling adults from forest vegetation. Further, we reared 106 species from larvae sampled on 14 plant species. Both xylemand phloem-feeding guilds exhibited wide host-plant ranges, as 74% of species fed on more than one plant family. In comparison, ...