Toxoplasma gondii is a protozoan parasite that infects a large spectrum of warm-blooded animals, including humans. Small rodents and marsupials play an important role in the epidemiology of T. gondii because they are sources of infection for domestic and feral cats. Serum samples from 151 rodents and 48 marsupials, captured in the Atlantic Forest, São Paulo State, southeastern Brazil, were anal...

The use of synthetic insecticides may cause failures in the biological control insect pests due to undesired side effects on natural enemies and rapid evolution insecticide resistance agroecosystems. Residues neurotoxic can interfere with recognition chemical cues used by find pests. We investigated sub-lethal concentrations pyrethroid lambda-cyhalothrin interaction between aphid parasitoid was...

Aphidius gifuensis is one of the most important aphid natural enemies and has been successfully used to control Myzys persicae and other aphid species. High temperature in summer is one of the key barriers for the application of A. gifuensis in the field and greenhouse. In this work, we investigated the biological performance of A. gifuensis and the response of heat-shock proteins and antioxida...

Reference genes have been utilized in estimating gene expression levels using quantitative reverse transcriptase-quantitative polymerase chain reaction (qRT-PCR) analysis. Aphidius gifuensis Ashmaed is one of the most widely used biological control agents for aphids. The biological properties of this species have been studied in detail, and current investigations are focused on elucidating the ...

It is of adaptive value for a plant to prepare its defenses when a threat is detected, and certain plant volatiles associated with insect damage, such as cis-jasmone (CJ), are known to switch-on defense metabolism. We used aphid and aphid parasitoid responses to Arabidopsis thaliana as a model system for studying gene expression and defense chemistry and its impact at different trophic levels. ...