1,068 research outputs found
The Effects of Juvenile Exposure to Sub-lethal Concentrations of Pesticides on the Adult Reproductive Biology of the Male Southern House Mosquitoe, Culex quinquefasciatus
Mosquitoes transmit pathogens capable of causing significant diseases, the worst of which can permanently disfigure or kill. Mosquito control efforts can be strengthened by better understanding all aspects of mosquito biology, but there is deficient information regarding sperm production in male mosquitoes. Understanding the sperm production and capacity of vector species may reveal new control strategies.
The goal of this research was to determine if larval exposure to sub-lethal concentrations, defined as killing less than half of the sample population, of pesticides negatively impacts the adult male reproductive health of the southern house mosquito, Culex quinquefasciatus Say. This study quantified sperm counts for wild and lab reared (Sebring) Cx. quinquefasciatus. The Sebring colony produced more sperm than the wild collected mosquitoes. After baseline sperm counts were determined, each population was exposed to sub-lethal quantities of the larvicides spinosad, Lysinibacillus sphaericus, and methoprene, and the herbicides glyphosate and atrazine. Larvae were exposed during their third instar and remained in an environment with pesticide until eclosion. Adult males were dissected at one, four, seven, and fourteen days post eclosion.
The reproductive tracts were removed and the sperm diluted, and the sperm were counted in subsamples. Sperm counts for the Sebring colony were significantly reduced after the spinosad and L. sphaericus treatments, and significantly increased after the methoprene treatment. Sperm counts for the wild collected mosquitoes experienced no decrease from any treatment, but they did experience significant increase after the methoprene treatment. Wing lengths (as a proxy for body size) were measured for all experiments, but the treatments had no observed effects on body size. These results show that exposure to some chemicals during larval development can alter spermatogenesis in Culex quinquefasciatus males
Releasing incompatible males drives strong suppression across populations of wild and Wolbachia-carrying Aedes aegypti in Australia
Releasing sterile or incompatible male insects is a proven method of population management in agricultural systems with the potential to revolutionize mosquito control. Through a collaborative venture with the âDebugâ Verily Life Sciences team, we assessed the incompatible insect technique (IIT) with the mosquito vector Aedes aegypti in northern Australia in a replicated treatment control field trial. Backcrossing a US strain of Ae. aegypti carrying Wolbachia wAlbB from Aedes albopictus with a local strain, we generated a wAlbB2-F4 strain incompatible with both the wild-type (no Wolbachia) and wMel-Wolbachia Ae. aegypti now extant in North Queensland. The wAlbB2-F4 strain was manually mass reared with males separated from females using Verily sex-sorting technologies to obtain no detectable female contamination in the field. With community consent, we delivered a total of three million IIT males into three isolated landscapes of over 200 houses each, releasing âŒ50 males per house three times a week over 20 wk. Detecting initial overflooding ratios of between 5:1 and 10:1, strong population declines well beyond 80% were detected across all treatment landscapes when compared to controls. Monitoring through the following season to observe the ongoing effect saw one treatment landscape devoid of adult Ae. aegypti early in the season. A second landscape showed reduced adults, and the third recovered fully. These encouraging results in suppressing both wild-type and wMel-Ae. aegypti confirms the utility of bidirectional incompatibility in the field setting, show the IIT to be robust, and indicate that the removal of this arbovirus vector from human-occupied landscapes may be achievable
Photonic monitoring of atmospheric fauna
Insects play a quintessential role in the Earthâs ecosystems and their recent decline in abundance and diversity is alarming. Monitoring their population is paramount to understand the causes of their decline, as well as to guide and evaluate the efficiency of conservation policies. Monitoring populations of flying insects is generally done using physical traps, but this method requires long and expensive laboratory analysis where each insect must be identified by qualified personnel. Lack of reliable data on insect populations is now considered a significant issue in the field of entomology, often referred to as a âdata crisisâ in the field. This doctoral work explores the potential of entomological photonic sensors to unlock some of the limitations of traditional methods. This work focuses on the development of optical instruments similar in essence to lidar systems, with the goal of counting and identifying flying insects from a distance in their natural habitat. Those systems rely on the interactions between the near-infrared laser light and insects flying through the laser beam. Each insect is characterized by retrieving its optical and morphological properties, such as wingbeat frequency, optical cross sections, or depolarization ratios. This project ran in parallel a series of laboratory and field experiments. In the laboratory, prototypes were tested and used to create a database of insectsâ properties. The data were used to train machine learning classifiers aiming at identifying insects from optical signals. In the case of mosquitoes, the sex and species of an unknown specimen was predicted with a 99% and 80% accuracy respectively. It also showed that the presence of eggs within the abdomen of a female mosquito could be detected from several meters away with 87% accuracy. In the field, instruments were deployed in real-world conditions for a total of 520 days over three years. More than a million insects were observed, allowing to continuously monitor their aerial density over months with a temporal resolution down to the minute. While this approach remains very new, this work demonstrated that photonic sensors could become a powerful tool to tackle the current lack of data in the field of entomology
ChatGPT in the context of precision agriculture data analytics
In this study we argue that integrating ChatGPT into the data processing
pipeline of automated sensors in precision agriculture has the potential to
bring several benefits and enhance various aspects of modern farming practices.
Policy makers often face a barrier when they need to get informed about the
situation in vast agricultural fields to reach to decisions. They depend on the
close collaboration between agricultural experts in the field, data analysts,
and technology providers to create interdisciplinary teams that cannot always
be secured on demand or establish effective communication across these diverse
domains to respond in real-time. In this work we argue that the speech
recognition input modality of ChatGPT provides a more intuitive and natural way
for policy makers to interact with the database of the server of an
agricultural data processing system to which a large, dispersed network of
automated insect traps and sensors probes reports. The large language models
map the speech input to text, allowing the user to form its own version of
unconstrained verbal query, raising the barrier of having to learn and adapt
oneself to a specific data analytics software. The output of the language model
can interact through Python code and Pandas with the entire database, visualize
the results and use speech synthesis to engage the user in an iterative and
refining discussion related to the data. We show three ways of how ChatGPT can
interact with the database of the remote server to which a dispersed network of
different modalities (optical counters, vibration recordings, pictures, and
video), report. We examine the potential and the validity of the response of
ChatGPT in analyzing, and interpreting agricultural data, providing real time
insights and recommendations to stakeholdersComment: 33 pages, 21 figure
Radar, Insect Population Ecology, and Pest Management
Discussions included: (1) the potential role of radar in insect ecology studies and pest management; (2) the potential role of radar in correlating atmospheric phenomena with insect movement; (3) the present and future radar systems; (4) program objectives required to adapt radar to insect ecology studies and pest management; and (5) the specific action items to achieve the objectives
Area-wide Integrated Pest Management
Over 98% of sprayed insecticides and 95% of herbicides reach a destination other than their target species, including non-target species, air, water and soil. The extensive reliance on insecticide use reduces biodiversity, contributes to pollinator decline, destroys habitat, and threatens endangered species. This book offers a more effective application of the Integrated Pest Management (IPM) approach, on an area-wide (AW) or population-wide (AW-IPM) basis, which aims at the management of the total population of a pest, involving a coordinated effort over often larger areas. For major livestock pests, vectors of human diseases and pests of high-value crops with low pest tolerance, there are compelling economic reasons for participating in AW-IPM. This new textbook attempts to address various fundamental components of AW-IPM, e.g. the importance of relevant problem-solving research, the need for planning and essential baseline data collection, the significance of integrating adequate tools for appropriate control strategies, and the value of pilot trials, etc. With chapters authored by 184 experts from more than 31 countries, the book includes many technical advances in the areas of genetics, molecular biology, microbiology, resistance management, and social sciences that facilitate the planning and implementing of area-wide strategies. The book is essential reading for the academic and applied research community as well as national and regional government plant and human/animal health authorities with responsibility for protecting plant and human/animal health
Commensal microbiota modulates larval foraging behaviour, development rate and pupal production in Bactrocera tryoni
Project Raising Q-fly Sterile Insect Technique to World Standard (HG14033) is funded by the Hort Frontiers Fruit Fly Fund, part of the Hort Frontiers strategic partnership initiative developed by Hort Innovation, with co-investment from Macquarie University and contributions from the Australian Government. BN is supported by an international Research Training Program (iRTP) scholarship from Macquarie University (NSW, Australia).Peer reviewedPublisher PD
Wolbachia pipientis associated with tephritid fruit fly pests: from basic research to applications
Members of the true fruit flies (family Tephritidae) are among the most serious agricultural pests worldwide, whose control and management demands large and costly international efforts. The need for cost-effective and environmentally friendly integrated pest management (IPM) has led to the development and implementation of autocidal control strategies. These approaches include the widely used sterile insect technique and the incompatible insect technique (IIT). IIT relies on maternally transmitted bacteria (namely Wolbachia) to cause a conditional sterility in crosses between released
mass-reared Wolbachia-infected males and wild females, which are either uninfected or infected with a different Wolbachia strain (i.e., cytoplasmic incompatibility; CI). Herein, we review the current state of knowledge on Wolbachia-tephritid interactions including infection prevalence in wild populations, phenotypic consequences, and their impact on life history traits. Numerous pest tephritid species are reported to harbor Wolbachia infections, with a subset exhibiting high prevalence. The phenotypic effects
of Wolbachia have been assessed in very few tephritid species, due in part to the difficulty of manipulating Wolbachia infection (removal or transinfection). Based on recent methodological advances (high-throughput DNA sequencing) and breakthroughs concerning the mechanistic basis of CI, we suggest research avenues that could accelerate generation of necessary knowledge for the potential use of Wolbachia-based IIT in area-wide integrated pest management (AW-IPM) strategies for the population
control of tephritid pests.Instituto de GenĂ©ticaFil: Mateos, Mariana. Texas A&M University. Departments of Ecology and Conservation Biology, and Wildlife and Fisheries Sciences; Estados UnidosFil: Martinez Montoya, Humberto. Universidad AutĂłnoma de Tamaulipas. Unidad AcadĂ©mica Multidisciplinaria Reynosa Aztlan. Laboratorio de GenĂ©tica y GenĂłmica Comparativa; MĂ©xicoFil: Lanzavecchia, Silvia Beatriz. Instituto Nacional de TecnologĂa Agropecuaria (INTA). Instituto de GenĂ©tica; ArgentinaFil: Conte, Claudia Alejandra. Instituto Nacional de TecnologĂa Agropecuaria (INTA). Instituto de GenĂ©tica; ArgentinaFil: GuillĂ©n, Karina. El Colegio de la Frontera Sur; MĂ©xicoFil: MorĂĄn-Aceves, Brenda M. El Colegio de la Frontera Sur; MĂ©xicoFil: Toledo, Jorge. El Colegio de la Frontera Sur; MĂ©xicoFil: Liedo, Pablo. El Colegio de la Frontera Sur; MĂ©xicoFil: Asimakis, Elias D. University of Patras. Department of Environmental Engineering; GreciaFil: Doudoumis, Vangelis. University of Patras. Department of Environmental Engineering; GreciaFil: Kyritsis, Georgios A. University of Thessaly. Department of Agriculture Crop Production and Rural Environment. Laboratory of Entomology and Agricultural Zoology; GreciaFil: Papadopoulos, Nikos T. University of Thessaly. Department of Agriculture Crop Production and Rural Environment. Laboratory of Entomology and Agricultural Zoology; GreciaFil: Augustinos, Antonios A. Hellenic Agricultural Organization. Institute of Industrial and Forage Crops. Department of Plant Protection; GreciaFil: Segura, Diego Fernando. Instituto Nacional de TecnologĂa Agropecuaria (INTA). Instituto de AgrobiotecnologĂa y BiologĂa Molecular; Argentina. Instituto Nacional de TecnologĂa Agropecuaria (INTA). Instituto de GenĂ©tica. Laboratorio de GenĂ©tica de Insectos de Importancia EconĂłmica; Argentina. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones CientĂficas y TĂ©cnicas; ArgentinaFil: Tsiamis, George. University of Patras. Department of Environmental Engineering; Greci
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