Biological Control with Trichogramma in China: History, Present Status, and Perspectives

2021 ◽  
Vol 66 (1) ◽  
pp. 463-484
Author(s):  
Lian-Sheng Zang ◽  
Su Wang ◽  
Fan Zhang ◽  
Nicolas Desneux

Trichogramma species make up one of the most commonly used groups of natural enemies for biological control programs worldwide. Given the major successes in using Trichogramma to control economically important lepidopterous pests on agricultural crops in China, the biology and ecology of these wasps have been intensively studied to identify traits that contribute to successful biological control. Since the 1960s, improved mass production of Trichogramma and better augmentative release methods to suppress agricultural pests have been achieved. We review the history of research and development; current knowledge on biodiversity and bio-ecology of the species used; and achievements in mass-rearing methods, release strategies, and current large-scale applications in China. In addition, we discuss potential issues and challenges for Trichogramma research and applications in the future .

Insects ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (9) ◽  
pp. 790
Author(s):  
Dale A. Halbritter ◽  
Min B. Rayamajhi ◽  
Gregory S. Wheeler ◽  
Jorge G. Leidi ◽  
Jenna R. Owens ◽  
...  

Pseudophilothrips ichini is a recently approved biological control agent for the highly invasive Brazilian peppertree in Florida, USA. Prior to approval for field release in 2019, thrips colonies used for host specificity testing were produced and maintained in small cylinders to fit in restricted quarantine spaces. This next segment in the classical biological control pipeline is mass production and distribution of P. ichini. To accomplish this, we developed novel techniques to expand from small colony maintenance to large-scale production. We first quantified the productivity of the small cylinders, each containing a 3.8 L potted plant and producing an average of 368 thrips per generation. Given the amount of maintenance the cylinders required, we investigated larger cages to see if greater numbers of thrips could be produced with less effort. Acrylic boxes (81.5 × 39.5 × 39.5 cm) each contained two 3.8 L plants and produced an average of 679 thrips per generation. The final advancement was large, thrips-proof Lumite® screen cages (1.8 × 1.8 × 1.8 m) that each held six plants in 11.4 L pots and produced 13,864 thrips in as little as 5 wk. Screen cages and cylinders had the greatest thrips fold production, but screen cages required ten times less labor per thrips compared to either cylinders or boxes. The efficiency of these large screen cages ensured sustained mass production and field release capacity in Schinus-infested landscapes. The screen cage method is adapted and used by collaborators, and this will expand the literature on beneficial thrips mass rearing methods.


2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Ana P. G. S. Wengrat ◽  
Aloisio Coelho Junior ◽  
Jose R. P. Parra ◽  
Tamara A. Takahashi ◽  
Luis A. Foerster ◽  
...  

AbstractThe egg parasitoid Telenomus remus (Hymenoptera: Scelionidae) has been investigated for classical and applied biological control of noctuid pests, especially Spodoptera (Lepidoptera: Noctuidae) species. Although T. remus was introduced into Brazil over three decades ago for classical biological control of S. frugiperda, this wasp has not been recorded as established in corn or soybean crops. We used an integrative approach to identify T. remus, combining a taxonomic key based on the male genitalia with DNA barcoding, using a cytochrome c oxidase subunit I mitochondrial gene fragment. This is the first report of natural parasitism of T. remus on S. frugiperda and S. cosmioides eggs at two locations in Brazil. We also confirmed that the T. remus lineage in Brazil derives from a strain in Venezuela (originally from Papua New Guinea and introduced into the Americas, Africa, and Asia). The occurrence of T. remus parasitizing S. frugiperda and S. cosmioides eggs in field conditions, not associated with inundative releases, suggests that the species has managed to establish itself in the field in Brazil. This opens possibilities for future biological control programs, since T. remus shows good potential for mass rearing and egg parasitism of important agricultural pests such as Spodoptera species.


Author(s):  
John A. Goolsby ◽  
Matthew A. Ciomperlik ◽  
Gregory S. Simmons ◽  
Charles J. Pickett ◽  
Juli A. Gould ◽  
...  

2019 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Xiaochen Liu ◽  
Stuart R. Reitz ◽  
Zhongren Lei ◽  
Haihong Wang

Abstract Behavioral thermoregulation is a defensive strategy employed by some insects to counter infections by parasites and pathogens. Most reported examples of this type of thermoregulatory response involve behavioral fevering. However depending upon the life history of a host-insect and that of the parasite or pathogen, the host may respond by cold-seeking behavior. Thermoregulation is not only ecologically important; it may affect the success of parasites and pathogens as biological control agents. We examined if Frankliniella occidentalis (Pergande) thermoregulates in response to infection by Beauveria bassiana, a fungal pathogen commonly used for biological control. Fungal-infected thrips preferentially moved to cooler areas (~12 °C) while healthy thrips sought out warmer temperatures (~24 °C). This cold-seeking behavior suppressed the growth of B. bassiana in infected thrips, and significantly improved survivorship of infected thrips. At 24 °C, males only survived up to 10 d after infection and females up to 20 d after infection, which was substantially poorer survivorship than that of corresponding healthy individuals. However, individuals of both sexes survived up to 48 d after infection at 12 °C, which was a much less severe reduction in survivorship compared with the effect of B. bassiana infection at 24 °C. The proportion of females among progeny from infected thrips at 12 °C was higher than at 24 °C. Therefore, cold-seeking behavior is beneficial to F. occidentalis when infected by B. bassiana, and its effects should be considered in the use of B. bassiana in biological control programs.


2012 ◽  
Vol 2012 ◽  
pp. 1-24 ◽  
Author(s):  
Myriam Gitti ◽  
Fabrizio Brighenti ◽  
Brian R. McNamara

The current generation of flagship X-ray missions,ChandraandXMM-Newton, has changed our understanding of the so-called “cool-core” galaxy clusters and groups. Instead of the initial idea that the thermal gas is cooling and flowing toward the center, the new picture envisages a complex dynamical evolution of the intracluster medium (ICM) regulated by the radiative cooling and the nongravitational heating from the active galactic nucleus (AGN). Understanding the physics of the hot gas and its interplay with the relativistic plasma ejected by the AGN is key for understanding the growth and evolution of galaxies and their central black holes, the history of star formation, and the formation of large-scale structures. It has thus become clear that the feedback from the central black hole must be taken into account in any model of galaxy evolution. In this paper, we draw a qualitative picture of the current knowledge of the effects of the AGN feedback on the ICM by summarizing the recent results in this field.


Author(s):  
Daryle Williams

The robust, sustained interest in the history of the transatlantic slave trade has been a defining feature of the intersection of African studies and digital scholarship since the advent of humanities computing in the 1960s. The pioneering work of the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade Database, first made widely available in CD-ROM in 1999, is one of several major projects to use digital tools in the research and analysis of the Atlantic trade from the sixteenth through the mid-nineteenth century. Over the past two decades, computing technologies have also been applied to the exploration of African bondage outside the maritime Atlantic frame. In the 2010s, Slave Voyages (the online successor to the original Slave Trade Database compact disc) joined many other projects in and outside the academy that deploy digital tools in the reconstruction of the large-scale structural history of the trade as well as the microhistorical understandings of individual lives, the biography of notables, and family ancestry.


Author(s):  
Beatriz Jordão Paranhos ◽  
Dori Edson Nava ◽  
Aldo Malavasi

Abstract: Fruit flies are the main pests of fruit growing in Brazil. They have been managed predominantly with the use of insecticides applied as cover spray and or/as toxic baits. Currently, the trend of management strategies is toward the adoption of methods that cause the lowest environmental impact in large areas. In this context, biological control is an excellent option to be used together with other management strategies, such as sterile insects, because it leaves no residues, does not disturb nontarget pests, and can be permanent if the natural enemy establishes itself in the field. This review paper addresses the current knowledge on the biological control of fruit flies in Brazil, highlighting the great biodiversity of its natural enemies, especially parasitoids, its biology and ecology. The classical biological control programs in Brazil are also reported, from the introduction of Tetrastichus giffardianus (Hymenoptera: Eulophidae), in 1937, to control Ceratitis capitata (Diptera: Tephritidae), to that of Fopius arisanus (Hymenoptera: Braconidae), in 2012, to control Bactrocera carambolae (Diptera: Tephritidae). Finally, the obtained advances are pointed out, as well as the main bottlenecks and perspectives for the effective use of biological control programs against fruit flies.


2010 ◽  
Vol 365 (1542) ◽  
pp. 869-881 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anders Brodin

In this review, I will present an overview of the development of the field of scatter hoarding studies. Scatter hoarding is a conspicuous behaviour and it has been observed by humans for a long time. Apart from an exceptional experimental study already published in 1720, it started with observational field studies of scatter hoarding birds in the 1940s. Driven by a general interest in birds, several ornithologists made large-scale studies of hoarding behaviour in species such as nutcrackers and boreal titmice. Scatter hoarding birds seem to remember caching locations accurately, and it was shown in the 1960s that successful retrieval is dependent on a specific part of the brain, the hippocampus. The study of scatter hoarding, spatial memory and the hippocampus has since then developed into a study system for evolutionary studies of spatial memory. In 1978, a game theoretical paper started the era of modern studies by establishing that a recovery advantage is necessary for individual hoarders for the evolution of a hoarding strategy. The same year, a combined theoretical and empirical study on scatter hoarding squirrels investigated how caches should be spaced out in order to minimize cache loss, a phenomenon sometimes called optimal cache density theory. Since then, the scatter hoarding paradigm has branched into a number of different fields: (i) theoretical and empirical studies of the evolution of hoarding, (ii) field studies with modern sampling methods, (iii) studies of the precise nature of the caching memory, (iv) a variety of studies of caching memory and its relationship to the hippocampus. Scatter hoarding has also been the subject of studies of (v) coevolution between scatter hoarding animals and the plants that are dispersed by these.


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