1 The eastern larch beetle Dendroctonus simplex LeConte colonizes the phloem of tamarack Larix laricina (Du Roi) K. Koch, preferring recently dead or moribund trees weakened by insect defoliation or other factors that predispose trees to beetle attack. 2 Outbreaks of eastern larch beetles are typically localized, of short duration, and collapse when the supply of stressed hosts is exhausted. Al...

Many scarab beetles produce rigid projections from the body called horns. The exaggerated sizes of these structures and the staggering diversity of their forms have impressed biologists for centuries. Recent comparative studies using DNA sequence-based phylogenies have begun to reconstruct the historical patterns of beetle horn evolution. At the same time, developmental genetic experiments have...

The larva of the tortoise beetle, Hemisphaerota cyanea (Chrysomelidae, Cassidinae), constructs a thatch from long filamentous fecal strands, beneath which it is totally concealed. The thatch is not discarded at molting but is enlarged by addition of strands as the larva grows. Thatch construction begins when the larva hatches from the egg. Pupation occurs beneath the thatch. Two predators, a co...

Background: Tobacco use is a major cause of preventable death and disease in India. A nationally representative case-control study of smoking in India (2008) revealed that only 2% of smokers had spontaneously quit. This study was undertaken to assess tobacco quit rates among the youth in an urban health center and to determine barriers in quitting tobacco use. Methods: This cross sectional stud...

Nematodes and insects are the two most speciose animal phyla and nematode-insect associations encompass widespread biological interactions. To dissect the chemical signals and the genes mediating this association, we investigated the effect of an oriental beetle sex pheromone on the development and behavior of the nematode Pristionchus pacificus. We found that while the beetle pheromone is attr...

Previous studies have shown that indigenous beetle diversity reflects indigenous plant diversity in modified and remnant habitats. This study examines the indigenous: introduced relationship at a locality where degraded pasture has been progressively revegetated. Pitfall traps were used to collect beetles from three revegetated sites of different ages (5, 17 and 100 years) and in a coastal Mueh...

Sequences obtained from transcriptomes of the lady beetle Coleomegilla maculata were compared to those designed for incorporation into crops. Searches of the transcriptomes identified sequences as the most likely to be closely similar to the sequences described in RNAi plant incorporated products. Some proposed prime RNAi pest management targets were also used to identify predicted orthologs fr...

Carbaryl is regarded among the most effective, economically viable, and ecologically-compatible insecticides available for protecting conifers from bark beetle attack in the western United States. Treatments are typically applied in spring prior to initiation of bark beetle flight for that year. We evaluated the efficacy of spring and fall applications for protecting individual lodgepole pine, ...

three bacteria from a tobacco industry effluent and one from a sewage sample were isolated on a medium comprising of 1% tobacco powder as sole source of nutrients. bacteria isolated from the industrial waste water were identified as bacillus cereus, b. alvei and b. circulans. while, lactobacillus sp. was isolated from the sewage sample. the bacteria were optimized for various growth conditions ...

transformation of plants using agrabacterium rhizogenes may affect secondary metabolite production as well as morphological changes. in this study, t-dna from ri plasmid in a. rhizogenes carrying pri15834-prt35s-gus was introduced into tobacco leaf segments to initiate development of transformed hairy roots. plant regeneration from transgenic roots used ms medium, and plants regenerated fro...