Frankliniella occidentalis (Pergande) (Thysanoptera: Thripidae) , the western flower thrips, is the primary insect pest of tomatoes and other vegetable crops in northern Florida and the rest of the southeastern USA. However, it is not the only flower thrips present in the region nor is it always the most abundant species. To determine the seasonal and within plant distribution of these various ...

Vector infection by some animal-infecting parasites results in altered feeding that enhances transmission. Modification of vector behavior is of broad adaptive significance, as parasite fitness relies on passage to a new host, and vector feeding is nearly always essential for transmission. Although several plant viruses infect their insect vectors, we have shown that vector infection by a plant...

The diseases caused by thrips-transmitted tospoviruses (genus Tospovirus, family Bunyaviridae) are a major constraint to production of important vegetable, legume and ornamental crops in different parts of the world. Tospoviruses are characterized by having tripartite RNA genomes and utilizing both negative and ambisense genome expression strategies. Their often wide and overlapping host ranges...

UNLABELLED Tomato spotted wilt virus (TSWV) is the type member of tospoviruses (genus Tospovirus), plant-infecting viruses that cause severe damage to ornamental and vegetable crops. Tospoviruses are transmitted by thrips in the circulative propagative mode. We generated a collection of NSs-defective TSWV isolates and showed that TSWV coding for truncated NSs protein could not be transmitted by...

During the past two decades, onion thrips, Thrips tabaci Lindeman (Thysanoptera: Thripidae), has become a global pest of increasing concern in commercial onion (Allium cepa L.), because of its development of resistance to insecticides, ability to transmit plant pathogens, and frequency of producing more generations at high temperatures. T. tabaci feeds directly on leaves, causing blotches and p...

background: watermelon silver mottle virus (wsmov), which belongs to the genus tospovirus, causes significant loss in cucurbitaceae plants. objectives: development of a highly sensitive and reliable detection method for wsmov.materials and methods: recombinant plasmids for targeting the sequence of nucleocapsid protein gene of wsmov were constructed. sybr green i real-time pcr was established a...

Tomato spotted wilt virus (TSWV) is an economically important virus that is transmitted in a persistent propagative manner by its thrips vector, Frankliniella occidentalis. Previously, we found that a soluble form of the envelope glycoprotein G(N) (G(N)-S) specifically bound thrips midguts and reduced the amount of detectable virus inside midgut tissues. The aim of this research was to (i) dete...

Frankliniella occidentalis (Pergande) is a key pest of various crops worldwide. In this study, we analyse the dependence of the infestation of this pest on spatially distributed micro climatic factors in a rose greenhouse. Despite the importance of this subject, the few existing studies have been realized in laboratory rather than in greenhouse conditions. However, recent progress on greenhouse...