Malaria transmission in Africa is without doubt governed by the existence of a group of highly efficient vectors, of which Anopheles gambiae Giles sensu stricto is predominant. The endophilic and anthropophagic behaviours of this mosquito create an intimate association between the human reservoir and insect vectors of malaria. In this paper several mosquito-related and environmental factors tha...

Pierce’s disease (PD), a lethal disease of grapevine, is caused by Xylella fastidiosa, a Gram-negative, xylem-limited bacterium, transmitted from plant to plant by xylem feeding insects.1 Strains of X. fastidiosa have also been associated with diseases that cause tremendous losses in many other economically important plants including citrus.2 Although the complete genome sequence of X. fastidio...

ABSTRACT: Robert Hungate, considered the father of rumen microbiology, was the fi rst to initiate a systematic exploration of the microbial ecosystem of the rumen, but he was not alone. The techniques he developed to isolate and identify cellulose-digesting bacteria from the rumen have had a major impact not only in delineating the complex ecosystem of the rumen but also in clinical microbiolog...

Introduction: This study examined the relationship between specific psychosocial variables and the use of insect repellents on skin or clothing as a preventive behavior for Chikungunya fever among US travelers to Caribbean destinations. Methods: A cross-sectional retrospective online survey method was adopted. US residents who travelled to one of 34 Carib...

Insect-fungal complexes provide challenging and fascinating systems for the study of biotic interactions between plants. plant pathogens, insect vectors and other associated organisms. The types of interactions among these organisms (mutualism. antagonism. parasitism. phoresy. etc.) are as variable as the range of organisms involved (plants, fungi, insects. mites. etc.). We focus on bark beetle...

abstract comparing with the numerous studies carried out in other countries, information on apoidea superfamily in iran is scare. during a faunistic survey of pollinator bees associated with alfalfa fields in mashhad and chenaran regions in 2010, numerous specimens of apoidea superfamily were collected and identified. among the identified species, anthidium diadema (latreille, 1809) is record f...

Investigation of insect immune mechanisms provides important information concerning innate immunity, which in many aspects is conserved in animals. This is one of the reasons why insects serve as model organisms to study virulence mechanisms of human pathogens. From the evolutionary point of view, we also learn a lot about host-pathogen interaction and adaptation of organisms to conditions of l...

Insect olfactory perception involves many aspects of insect life, and can directly or indirectly evoke either individual or group behaviors. Insect olfactory receptors and odorant-binding proteins (OBPs) are considered to be crucial to insect-specific and -sensitive olfaction. Although the mechanisms of interaction between OBPs or OBP/ligand complex with olfactory receptors are still not w...

The heat shock protein 90 plays a pivotal role in the life cycle control of Leishmania donovani promoting the fast-growing insect stage of this parasite. Equally important for insect stage growth is the co-chaperone Sti1. We show that replacement of Sti1 is only feasible in the presence of additional Sti1 transgenes indicating an essential role. To better understand the impact of Sti1 and its i...

Saproxylic insect communities inhabiting tree hollow microhabitats correspond with large food webs which simultaneously are constituted by multiple types of plant-animal and animal-animal interactions, according to the use of trophic resources (wood- and insect-dependent sub-networks), or to trophic habits or interaction types (xylophagous, saprophagous, xylomycetophagous, predators and commens...