The processes of host plant resistance to insect feeding and pathogen attack involve several complicated plant defense pathways comprising numerous regulations of pathogen-related gene expressions. The aim of this study is to examine the ethylene signaling defense pathway of melon plants. We present a novel way of applying text mining in plant resistance research literature reviews. SAS ® Text ...

Forest-insect systems frequently show cyclic dynamics which has been of considerable interest to both experimental and theoretical ecologists. One important issue has been the manner in which density-dependence acting on the host population through resource competition influences the likelihood of population cycles. Existing models make contradictory predictions. Here, we explore two models tha...

Characterizing the vector competence of Diaphorina citri Kuwayama for 'Candidatus Liberibacter asiaticus,' the pathogen causing citrus greening, is essential for understanding the epidemiology of this disease that is threatening the U.S. citrus industry. Vector competence studies have been difficult because of the biology of D. citri, the inability to culture the pathogen, and the available dia...

The duration of the evolutionary association between a pathogen and vector can be inferred based on the strength of their mutualistic interactions. A well-adapted pathogen is likely to confer some benefit or, at a minimum, exhibit low pathogenicity toward its host vector. Coevolution of the two toward a mutually beneficial association appears to have occurred between the citrus greening disease...

1101 Anything that’s alive runs the risk of infection. How you respond to infection, however, depends on where you sit on the evolutionary tree. Humans and other vertebrates can fend off billions of pathogens by routinely recombining bits of genes for surface molecules on the cells charged with pathogen recognition. Insects and other invertebrates rely to a large degree on the pathogen recognit...

The frequency and intensity of extreme heat in the environment have increased last decade. Extreme heating events (EHE) wide-ranging impacts on biological systems from molecular to community level. However, EHE been poorly studied pathogen–host systems. Here, we explore how affects interaction among insect hosts, Osmia cornifrons lignaria , a protozoan pathogen, Crithidia mellificae . We compar...