Beetles (Coleoptera) are the most diverse animal group on earth and interact with numerous symbiotic or pathogenic microbes in their environments. The red flour beetle Tribolium castaneum is a genetically tractable model beetle species and its whole genome sequence has recently been determined. To advance our understanding of the molecular basis of beetle immunity here we analyzed the whole tra...

To test the efficacy of RNA interference (RNAi) as a method for target-site screening in Diabrotica virgifera virgifera LeConte (Coleoptera: Chrysomelidae) larvae, genes were identified and tested for which clear RNAi phenotypes had been identified in the Coleopteran model, Tribolium castaneum. Here the cloning of the D. v. vergifera orthologs of laccase 2 (DvvLac2) and chitin synthase 2 (DvvCH...

We explore the persistence of corn oil sensitivity in a population of the flour beetle Tribolium castaneum using evolutionary game methods that model population dynamics and changes in the mean strategy of a population over time. The strategy in an evolutionary game is a trait that affects the fitness of the organisms. Corn oil sensitivity represents such a strategy in the flour beetle. We adap...

Tribolium castaneum (Herbst) is a cosmopolitan pest of stored products, grain processing, and foodwarehouses. This studywas initiated tomore fully characterize the role of structure, sanitation, and trap location on capture of T. castaneum in pheromone-baited pitfall traps commonly used in insect monitoring programs. Food patches, spatial structure, and trap position were manipulated in pilot s...

The red flour beetle, Tribolium castaneum, has been widely used as a laboratory model for analyzing gene function. In this study, we established a novel cell line (Tc81) from T. castaneum embryos and validated the utility of this cell line by analyzing the juvenile hormone (JH) signaling pathway. In Tc81 cells, the Krüppel homolog 1 gene (Kr-h1), which is a JH-dependent repressor of insect meta...

The red flour beetle, Tribolium castaneum (Herbst) (Coleoptera: Tenebrionidae) has had a long association with human stored food and can be a major pest in anthropogenic structures used for the processing and storage of grain-based products. Anthropogenic structures are fragmented landscapes characterized by spatially and temporally patchy resources. Here we investigate the ability of female T....

BeetleBase (http://www.beetlebase.org) has been updated to provide more comprehensive genomic information for the red flour beetle Tribolium castaneum. The database contains genomic sequence scaffolds mapped to 10 linkage groups (genome assembly release Tcas_3.0), genetic linkage maps, the official gene set, Reference Sequences from NCBI (RefSeq), predicted gene models, ESTs and whole-genome ti...

The statistical analysis revealed that 10g and 20g extracts of all the tested plants significantly inhibited the growth of Lemna minor with significant differences. The plants means were non-significant while the interaction between extracts and plants was significant. Fagonia cretica, Peganum harmala, Tribulus terrestris, Chrozophora tinctoria and Ricinus communis caused significant growth inh...

The eggs of the stored grain pests, Tribolium castaneum (Herbst), T. confusum (Duval) (Coleoptera: Tenebrionidae) and Cadra cautella (Walker) (Lepidoptera; Pyralidae) belonging to three age groups, 1, 2, and 3 days-old, were exposed to ultraviolet (UV) radiation with 254nm wavelength (UV-C) for different durations to determine irradiation effects on egg-hatching and adult emergence. An increase...

MicroRNAs (miRNAs) modulate transcript stability and translation. Functional mature miRNAs are processed from one or both arms of the hairpin precursor. The miR-100/10 family has undergone three independent evolutionary events that have switched the arm from which the functional miRNA is processed. The dominant miR-10 sequences in the insects Drosophila melanogaster and Tribolium castaneum are ...