Some wingless insects possess aerial righting reflexes, suggesting that adaptation for controlling body orientation while falling through air could have preceded flight. When threatened by natural enemies, wingless pea aphids (Acyrthosiphon pisum) may drop off their host plant and assume a stereotypic posture that rotates them in midair to land on their feet. The sensory information triggering ...

Seed coating (‘seed treatment’) is the leading delivery method of neonicotinoid insecticides in major crops such as soybean, wheat, cotton and maize. However, this prophylactic use neonicotinoids widely discussed from standpoint environmental costs. Growing soybean plants neonicotinoid-coated seeds field, we demonstrate that aphids (Aphis glycines) survived treatment, excreted honeydew containi...

The nutrition and metabolism of aphids are of interest to biochemists, since these important pests depend upon leaf cell sap for their nutrition and excrete large amounts of carbohydrate and amino acids (1, 2). This suggests that they may have some special nutritional requirements (3), and that their carbohydrate metabolism may possess unusual features. The evidence obtained to date indicates t...

During early stages of infestation by Russian wheat aphids (Diuraphis noxia [Mordvilko]; RWAs), barley (Hordeum vulgare L.) leaf cells collapsed and showed autofluorescence in the mesophyll and bundle sheath adjacent to the RWA stylet sheath. The response was visually similar to the hypersensitive cell death response, typical of resistance to microbial pathogens. Resistant barley produced signi...

The present research was carried out to study the trophic relationship between aphids and their primary parasitoids in Pothwar, Pakistan during 2009-2010 in the districts of Rawalpindi, Attock, Chakwal, and Jhelum. Ten species of aphids were recorded from 17 host plants. The aphids were parasitized by 11 species of primary parasitoids. Five quantitative aphid-parasitoid food webs were construct...

Pathogens and parasites can induce changes in host or vector behavior that enhance their transmission. In plant systems, such effects are largely restricted to vectors, because they are mobile and may exhibit preferences dependent upon plant host infection status. Here we report the first evidence that acquisition of a plant virus directly alters host selection behavior by its insect vector. We...

Oxylipins are oxygenated fatty acids and their derivatives that play key roles in response to stress. They are widespread in many organisms including mammals or plants but are unknown in arthropods. In this study, we identified oxylipins in Myzys persicae Sulzer aphids reared on Vicia faba L. plants. Further experiments based on: (i) Radiolabelled substrate incubation with aphid extracts, and (...

Aphids are widespread agricultural pests that are capable of disseminating plant viral diseases; however, despite coming into frequent contact with epiphytic bacteria, aphids are considered to have no role in bacterial transmission. Here, we demonstrate the ability of pea aphids to vector the phytopathogen Pseudomonas syringae pv. syringae B728a (PsyB728a). While feeding on plants colonized by ...