Aphids harbour both an obligate bacterial symbiont, Buchnera aphidicola, and a wide range of facultative ones. Facultative symbionts can modify morphological, developmental and physiological host traits that favour their spread within aphid populations. We experimentally investigated the idea that symbionts may also modify aphid behavioural traits to enhance their transmission. Aphids exhibit m...

Aphids (Hemiptera: Aphididae) have been the focus of several studies with respect to their interactions with inherited symbionts, but bacterial communities of most aphid species are still poorly characterized. In this research, we used bar-coded pyrosequencing to characterize bacterial communities in aphids. Specifically, we examined the diversity of bacteria in two obligately parthenogenetic a...

Aphids are phloem feeders that cause large damage globally as pest insects. They induce a variety of responses in the host plant, but not much is known about which responses are promoting or inhibiting aphid performance. Here, we investigated whether one of the responses induced in barley by the cereal aphid, bird cherry-oat aphid (Rhopalosiphum padi L.) affects aphid performance in the model p...

To achieve a thorough understanding of plant-aphid interactions, it is necessary to investigate in detail both the plant and insect side of the interaction. The pea aphid (PA; Acyrthosiphon pisum) has been selected by an international consortium as the model species for genetics and genomics studies, and the model legume Medicago truncatula is a host of this aphid. In this study, we identified ...

Sugarcane (Saccharum spp.) in Louisiana is colonized by two aphid species, the sugarcane aphid, Melanaphis sacchari (Zehntner), and the yellow sugarcane aphid, Sipha flava (Forbes) (Hemiptera: Aphididae). The main problem associated with M. sacchari is transmission of sugarcane yellow leaf virus, a casual agent of yellow leaf disease whose absence has been added to certification standards for m...

The mutualistic relationships that occur between myrmecophilous aphids and ants are based on the rich food supply that honeydew represents for ants and on the protection they provide against aphid natural enemies. While aphid predators and parasitoids actively forage for oviposition sites by using aphid semiochemicals, scouts of aphid-tending ant species would also benefit from locating honeyde...

This paper develops a deterministic and a stochastic population size model based on power-law kinetics for the black-margined pecan aphid. The deterministic model in current use incorporates cumulative-size dependency, but its solution is symmetric. The analogous stochastic model incorporates the prolific reproductive capacity of the aphid. These models are generalized in this paper to include ...

In this study, we propose an optimization method by the cooperative mechanism of ant and aphid as a new Ant Colony Optimization (ACO). This algorithm is named Ant Colony Optimization with Cooperative Aphid (ACOCA). In ACOCA algorithm, the aphid searches neighborhood solutions. This solution information is treated as a honey obtained from the aphid and the honey affects the search of ACO. Moreov...

The soybean aphid, Aphis glycines Matsumura (Hemiptera: Aphididae), is native to Asia and was recently (2000) detected in North America. Since then, it has become a significant threat to U.S. soybean production. Although neonicotinoid insecticide seed treatments, imidacloprid and thiamethoxam, have been suggested as a method of control, the season-long efficacy is still uncertain. Therefore, th...

Although soybean aphid (Aphis glycines) resistance is commercially available in the form of the Rag1 gene, the mechanism of this resistance is not fully understood. Amino acids are a limiting factor for aphid growth, and there is evidence that plant amino acid composition is related to aphid resistance. Antibiotic resistance like that conferred by Rag1 could be associated in part with both prot...