Identification of insect community inhabiting Kaas plateau, Western ghats through cytochrome oxidase subunit I gene

Kaas Plateau is located in Western Ghats of Maharashtra, India. The region is one of its kinds being a biodiversity hot spot declared by UNESCO representing rich biodiversity of Western Ghats in India. However, insect biodiversity of this region has not been studied in detail so far. Thus, the present study was aimed at identification of insect community based on mitochondrial gene, cytochrome c oxidase subunit I (MT-CO1), for quick and reliable identification. During a collection trip, several insect specimens were collected, which belonged to seven insect orders, viz., Lepidoptera, Coleoptera, Hemiptera, Hymenoptera, Diptera, Orthoptera and Thysanoptera. Based on their morphological characteristics, specimens collected were delineated in to various orders and families. This resulted in determination of possible 15 different insect species, of which 7 could be identified up to species level. Remaining 8 sequences were matched with existing GenBank database that was > 96%, therefore, were considered as putative species. One specimen could be identified up to genus level, viz., Cicindela sp. and one up to family level - Pentatomidae and six up to order level only, i.e., Coleoptera, Diptera, Lepidoptera, Orthoptera and Thysanoptera (2 specimens). The results suggested that 50% of the community could be identified to species level with MT-CO1 gene and at least about 8 specimens could possibly be new species for India. The insects thus collected from Kaas plateau were molecularly identified and at least 50% of collections were delineated to species level on the basis of their DNA barcodes for the first time

Not Available

Not AvailableInsect biodiversity of Salt Lake of Great Rann of Kutch in western India has not been studied in detail so far. This region is one of its kinds being a seasonal salt marsh representing India and Pakistan. Shore insects are one of the major invertebrates that inhabit this unique habitat and use carbon source for their growth and are considered as greenhouse pests. To identify these less described insect taxa, first specimens were morphologically delineated the species. Thereafter, DNA barcoding based on COX1 gene was applied to distinguish specimens collected into 9 different species. The quantification of biodiversity revealed that 80% of specimens belonged to Diptera and 10% each of Hymenoptera and Coleoptera. Based on molecular identification, two specimens that had 99% similarity with GenBank sequences were identified up to species level and were designated as Australospesis niveipennis (Diptera: Sepsidae) (insect code as SH6 GenBank accession no. KP227753 and SH7 accession no. KP227754) and one species designated as Atherigona varia (Diptera: Muscidae) (insect code SH2 GenBank accession no. KP227750). Three species were in dentified up to genus level, viz., Musca sp. (Diptera: Muscidae) (insect code SH1 GenBank accession no. KP227749), Microchironomus sp. (Diptera: Chironomidae) (insect code SH4 GenBank accession no. 227752) and Lispe sp. (Diptera: Muscidae) (insect code SH12 GenBank accession no. KP227758). However, other four insects could be identified up to family level only as it has similarity from 77-91% only in GenBank similarity test. These insects belonged to Chloropidae, Staphylinidae and Evaniidae. A monophyletic tree was observed with 4 clades showing interordinal relationship between 7 species of Order Diptera, 1 species of Coleoptera and 1 species of Hymenoptera. The overall transition/transversion bias R was 3.70 and nucleotide composite distance was 0.232, indicating a strong negative correlation trend, which suggests further sampling of these taxa in the Salt Lake area in different seasons.Not Availabl

Not Available

Not AvailableDNA barcoding has been widely used in species identification and biodiversity research because it has been shown that in many groups, including insects, interspecific variation in DNA sequences of some genes is much higher than intraspecific and this provided an opportunity to use DNA sequences for species identification. Cytochrome oxidase I (COI) barcoding sequences can be used to discover cryptic, closely related and morphologically similar species. DNA barcoding has gained increased recognition as a molecular tool for species identification in various groups of organisms. A study was, therefore, undertaken to barcode five fly species prevalent in poultry farms in and around Bengaluru districts in Karnataka state. The barcoding of COI gene of Musca domestica, Chrysomya megacephala, Hydrotaea capensis, Hermetia illucens and Sarcophaga ruficornis yielded an amplified fragment of 658 bp sequence. Barcode for all 5 species was generated using Bold_Systems v3 and submitted to GenBank and accession numbers were obtained. In the present study, identification of five different fly species based on morphology was also confirmed by DNA barcoding to prove their correct identity.Not Availabl

Electronic and structural properties of transition metal mono nitrides

375-377The electronic and elastic properties of rock-salt structured nitrides, namely TiN and VN have been studied using ab-initio pseudopotential scheme and local density approximation. Both the compounds show metallic behaviour, with a large gap between occupied and unoccupied states. The mechanical and the elastic properties show excellent agreement with experimental results and well compared with other theoretical results because of the inclusion of partial core correction in the present calculation

<span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-IN">Molecular characterization of brinjal shoot and fruit borer, <i>Leucinodes orbonalis </i><span style="mso-bidi-font-style:italic">(<span style="mso-bidi-font-weight:bold">Guenée) (Lepidoptera: Crambidae) based on mitochondrial marker cytochrome oxidase I and their phylogenetic relationship </span></span></span>

51-55<span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-IN">Shoot and fruit borer, Leucinodes orbonalis is an important insect pest infesting brinjal or eggplant in India. Molecular characterization of nine different populations belonging to various brinjal growing regions was done using Cytochorome C Oxidase I (COI) gene. Nucleotide analysis of genetic diversity and phylogenetic analysis of the COI indicate that the L. orbonalis from different geographical regions are homogenous. The results showed less nucleotide diversity (π = 0.007895) and overall mean distance (0.008±0.003). Topologies of neighbour-joining (NJ) trees indicate all the populations belong to single major clade. Therefore, it is inferred that there was no significant molecular diversity within L. orbonalis of different geographical locations of India with respect to COI. </span

Not Available

Not AvailableShoot and fruit borer, Leucinodes orbonalis is an important insect pest infesting brinjal or eggplant in India. Molecular characterization of nine different populations belonging to various brinjal growing regions was done using Cytochorome C Oxidase I (COI) gene. Nucleotide analysis of genetic diversity and phylogenetic analysis of the COI indicate that the L. orbonalis from different geographical regions are homogenous. The results showed less nucleotide diversity (π = 0.007895) and overall mean distance (0.008±0.003). Topologies of neighbour-joining (NJ) trees indicate all the populations belong to single major clade. Therefore, it is inferred that there was no significant molecular diversity within L. orbonalis of different geographical locations of India with respect to COI.Not Availabl

Not Available

Not AvailableThe whole genome of Helicoverpa armigera nucleopolyhedrovirus (HearNPV) from India, HearNPV-L1, was sequenced and analyzed, with a view to look for genes and/or nucleotide sequences that might be involved in the differences and virulence among other HearNPVs sequenced from other countries like SP1A (Spain), NNg1 (Kenya) and G4 (China). The entire nucleotide sequence of the HearNPV-L1 genome was 136,740 bp in length having GC content of 39.19% and contained 113 ORFs that could encode polypeptides with more than 50 amino acids (GenBank accession number KT013224). Two ORFs, viz., ORF 18 (300 bp) and ORF 19 (401 bp) identified were unique in HearNPV-L1 genome. Most of the HearNPV-L1 ORFs showed high similarity to NNg1, SP1A and G4 genomes. HearNPV-L1 genome contains 5 h (hr1-hr5), these regions were found 84–100% similar to hr region of NNg1, SP1A and G4 genomes. A total of four bro genes were observed in HearNPV-L1 genome, of which bro-a gene was 12 and 351 bp bigger than SP1A and G4 bro-a, respectively, while bro-b was 15 bp bigger SP1A and NNg1 bro-b, whereas 593 bp shorter than G4 bro-b, while bro-c was 12 bp shorter than NNg1, however bro-c was absent in G4 genome. HearNPV-L1 bro-d was 100% homologous to bro-d of SP1A, NNg1 and G4 genomes, respectively. The comparative analysis of HearNPV-L1 genome indicated that there are several other putative genes and nucleotide sequences that may be responsible for insecticidal activity in HearNPV-L1 isolate, however, further functional analysis of the hypothetical (putative) genes may help identifying the genes that are crucial for the virulence and insecticidal activityNot Availabl

Tunneling current in magnetic-ferroelectric-superconducting heterostructures

We report the tunneling current behavior of magnetic-ferroelectric-superconducting heterostructures for multistates non-volatile random access memory (NVRAM) elements. A heterostructure of La0.67Sr0.33MnO3 (LSMO) (50 nm)/PbZr0.52Ti0.48O3 (PZT) (5 nm)/Bi-Sr-Ca-Cu2-OX (BSCCO) (100 nm)/LaAlO3 (LAO) architecture was fabricated by pulsed laser deposition technique. The tunneling effects were investigated well above and below the superconducting phase transition temperature $(T_{s}\sim92\ \text{K})$ of the BSCCO bottom electrode. A divergent current and conductance paths were observed for polarization up and down direction above the coercive field of the ferroelectric tunnel barrier. This behaviour was significant below Ts where the moderate effect of the external magnetic field was also observed on the tunneling current. The dynamic conductance G(V) data fitted well with Brinkman's model for both polarizations up and polarization down states which suggest the presence of large tunnel electro-resistance