Evaluating ecological safety and conducting pest risk analysis for transgenic crops are vitally important before their commercial planting. The beet armyworm, Spodoptera exigua, a long-distance migratory insect pest, is not a direct target of transgenic Cry1Ac-expressing cotton in China, but nevertheless it has recently become an important pest. Migrants leaving their natal field arrive in othe...

Many researchers investigating plant-insect interactions maintain their insect colonies on artificial diet and assume that salivary enzymes and elicitors remain representative of natural situations. These salivary elicitors, such as the enzyme glucose oxidase (GOX), play important roles in influencing plant defense responses. In fact, GOX has been implicated in suppressing induced nicotine-prod...

The beet armyworm, Spodoptera exigua (Hübner) (Lepidoptera: Noctuidae), is a serious polyphagous insect pest worldwide. This species is known as a long-distance migrant, and previous studies on its migration have been mostly carried out in regions where it can overwinter. However, what pattern of seasonal migration this species exhibits in regions where it cannot overwinter (i.e., the 'summer b...

Fall armyworm, Spodoptera frugiperda (J.E. Smith) (Lepidoptera: Noctuidae), is a major pest of corn, Zea mays L., and a significant, but more sporadic, pest of cotton, Gossypium hirsutum L., in the Western Hemisphere. Previous studies showed that the cotton infestations primarily involve a fall armyworm subpopulation known as the "corn-strain" for which corn is the preferred host plant. It was ...

Fall armyworm, Spodoptera frugiperda (J.E. Smith) (Lepidoptera: Noctuidae), is an important agricultural pest that is endemic to Puerto Rico and the rest of the Caribbean islands. Relatively little is known about the population movements of fall armyworm in the Caribbean and the magnitude of genetic interactions, if any, with populations from North, South, and Central America. To address this i...