The fecundity advantage hypothesis suggests that females with a large body size produce more offspring than smaller females. We tested this hypothesis by exploring the correlations between life-history traits of three aphid species feeding on ten wheat accessions at three levels of analysis with respect to the host plant: overall, inter-accession, and intra-accession. We found that fecundity wa...

Indole-3-acetic acid-l-14C and 14C-sucrose labels were used to study the effects of greenbugs, Schizaphis graminum (Rondani), and Russian wheat aphids, Diuraphis noxia (Mordvilko), on phloem function of wheat (Triticum aesticum L.). Greenbug feeding significantly reduced translocation from the immediate feeding site; however, phloem integrity was not impeded. In contrast, Russian wheat aphids h...

Eriopis connexa (Germar) (Coleoptera: Coccinellidae) occurs in several countries of South America and its mass rearing is important for biological control programmes. This work evaluated biological aspects of E. connexa larva fed on eggs of Anagasta kuehniella (Zeller) (Lepidoptera: Pyralidae) and Spodoptera frugiperda (J. E. Smith) (Lepidoptera: Noctuidae) frozen for one day, fresh eggs of Dia...

Buchnera aphidicola is an obligate symbiotic bacterium that sustains the physiology of aphids by complementing their exclusive phloem sap diet. In this study, we reappraised the transport function of different Buchnera strains, from the aphids Acyrthosiphon pisum, Schizaphis graminum, Baizongia pistaciae and Cinara cedri, using the re-annotation of their transmembrane proteins coupled with an e...

Single strand conformation polymorphism (SSCP) analysis discriminated three mtDNA haplotypes in the greenbug, Schizaphis graminum (Rondani) (Homoptera: Aphididae), previously identified by sequencing a 1.0–1.2 kb portion of the cytochrome oxidase subunit I (COI) gene. Neighborjoining, maximum parsimony, and maximum likelihood analysis of a 150 b portion of the original 1.2 kb fragment of the CO...

A 8,392-nucleotide-long DNA fragment from Buchnera aphidicola (endosymbiont of the aphid Schizaphis graminum) contained five genes of the tryptophan biosynthetic pathway [trpDC(F)BA] which code for enzymes converting anthranilate to tryptophan. These genes are probably arranged as a single transcription unit. Downstream of the trp genes were ORF-V, ORF-VI, and P14, three open reading frames whi...