host preferences
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2022 ◽  
Vol 12 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sarah Itoïz ◽  
Sebastian Metz ◽  
Evelyne Derelle ◽  
Albert Reñé ◽  
Esther Garcés ◽  
...  

The last century has witnessed an increasing rate of new disease emergence across the world leading to permanent loss of biodiversity. Perkinsea is a microeukaryotic parasitic phylum composed of four main lineages of parasitic protists with broad host ranges. Some of them represent major ecological and economical threats because of their geographically invasive ability and pathogenicity (leading to mortality events). In marine environments, three lineages are currently described, the Parviluciferaceae, the Perkinsidae, and the Xcellidae, infecting, respectively, dinoflagellates, mollusks, and fish. In contrast, only one lineage is officially described in freshwater environments: the severe Perkinsea infectious agent infecting frog tadpoles. The advent of high-throughput sequencing methods, mainly based on 18S rRNA assays, showed that Perkinsea is far more diverse than the previously four described lineages especially in freshwater environments. Indeed, some lineages could be parasites of green microalgae, but a formal nature of the interaction needs to be explored. Hence, to date, most of the newly described aquatic clusters are only defined by their environmental sequences and are still not (yet) associated with any host. The unveiling of this microbial black box presents a multitude of research challenges to understand their ecological roles and ultimately to prevent their most negative impacts. This review summarizes the biological and ecological traits of Perkinsea—their diversity, life cycle, host preferences, pathogenicity, and highlights their diversity and ubiquity in association with a wide range of hosts.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Deepak Naik ◽  
Srikrishna Ganaraja Bhat ◽  
Sudeep D. Ghate ◽  
M. S. Mustak ◽  
R. Shyama Prasad Rao

Structural complexity of ecological networks facilitate the functional robustness of natural ecosystems. Threatened by the human actions such as habitat destruction and climate change, species may be more or less prone to ecological perturbations depending on the nature of their interactions. We examined the host network of tropical butterflies from the Indian region to see their level of interconnectedness. We manually curated larval host utilization data for 1053 butterflies of India. About 98.8% of species that occur pan-India and 90.6% of species exclusive to the Western Ghats had known hosts whereas it was only 25.9% for species exclusive to north-east India. There were 2589 unique butterfly-host interactions comprising 519 butterfly species and their 1091 known hosts. However, nearly 30% of the species had only single hosts. The Fabaceae and Poaceae were the key host families that accounted for 32.8% of the interactions. There were clear host preferences and monocots hosted disproportionately more butterfly species and interactions. Vanessa cardui had at least 39 known hosts while Ochlandra travancorica supported 19 butterfly species. There were 2693 species-pairs and 4226 interactions among 469 butterflies due to shared hosts. Many butterfly species that have relatively few/unique hosts might be vulnerable in the context of habitat destruction and climate change. This work has great relevance to the ecology and conservation of butterflies in India.


2021 ◽  
Vol 9 (4) ◽  
pp. 261-266
Author(s):  
Sundar Tiwari

The wheat bug, Nysius huttoni, is an endemic New Zealand insect pest. Its feeding can seriously reduce crop establishment in forage A cage study was conducted in Lincoln University, New Zealand to evaluate the pest’s host preferences on four plant species. Kale plants (Brassica oleracea) were used as a potentially susceptible control and other four trap plants were tested to evaluate as potential trap-plants. These were: Lobularia maritima (alyssum), Triticum aestivum (wheat), Coriandrum sativum (coriander) and Trifolium repens (white clover). The alyssum plant was more attractive to the wheat bug. The survival rate and preferences of the wheat bug was significantly better than other four plants. The deployment of such flowering trap crops can potentially trap the wheat bug and also provide multiple ecosystem services (ES) in an agro-ecosystem. The findings can be used to develop the wheat bug management protocol and also potentially provide ecosystem services in brassica fields.


Author(s):  
Howard S Ginsberg ◽  
Graham J Hickling ◽  
Genevieve Pang ◽  
Jean I Tsao ◽  
Meghan Fitzgerald ◽  
...  

Abstract Questing behavior and host associations of immature blacklegged ticks, Ixodes scapularis Say, from the southeastern United States are known to differ from those in the north. To elucidate these relationships we describe host associations of larval and nymphal I. scapularis from 8 lizard species sampled from 5 sites in the southeastern U.S. Larvae and nymphs attached in greater numbers to larger lizards than to smaller lizards, with differential levels of attachment to different lizard species. Blacklegged ticks are generally attached to skinks of the genus Plestiodon in greater numbers per unit lizard weight than to anoles (Anolis) or fence lizards (Sceloporus). The broad-headed skink, Plestiodon laticeps (Schneider), was a particularly important host for immature I. scapularis in our study and in several previous studies of tick–host associations in the southeast. Blacklegged ticks show selective attachment to Plestiodon lizard hosts in the southeast, but whether this results from behavioral host preferences or from ecological factors such as timing or microhabitat distributions of tick questing and host activity remains to be determined.


Forests ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (11) ◽  
pp. 1437
Author(s):  
Kateřina Náplavová ◽  
Terézia Beck ◽  
Ján Gáper ◽  
Petr Pyszko ◽  
Svetlana Gáperová

Ganoderma P. Karst. is a genus of wood decaying fungi with complicated taxonomy due to morphological variability of their basidiomata. Although a wide range of host plants is assumed for the genus as a whole, there is a need for revision of the host specificity of individual species. Based on revision of mycological collections across the Czech Republic we analyzed the ecological trends of six European species, including host preferences and propensity to parasitism. Individual Ganoderma species were sampled differentially along vegetation categories, with G. adspersum (Schulzer) Donk prevailing in habitats with high anthropogenic factors and G. applanatum (Pers.) Pat. in natural vegetation with limited anthropogenic influence, differing also in average altitude of sampling. The number of host species of individual Ganoderma spp. did not reach an asymptote, suggesting an open host plasticity and great potential for finding new host associations in future. Very distinct host compositions were found for individual Ganoderma species, at the genus level, with G. applanatum being the least host specific. Individual Ganoderma species differ also in their tendency to parasitic life strategy. The proportion of parasites increases with decreasing vegetation category and it is therefore higher in urban than natural environment, especially on hardwood trees.


Author(s):  
Trevor J. L. Sless ◽  
Michael G. Branstetter ◽  
Jessica P. Gillung ◽  
Erin A. Krichilsky ◽  
Kerrigan B. Tobin ◽  
...  

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Samara Azevedo de Oliveira ◽  
J Antonio Baeza ◽  
Paula Agudelo ◽  
Saara J. DeWalt

Ditylenchus gallaeformans is a plant parasitic nematode that induces galls on aboveground parts of Melastomataceae plants. It differs from most gall-inducing nematodes in that it is not an endoparasite, and has been considered as a possible biological control agent against invasive species of Miconia . Little is known about D. gallaeformans biology, genetic differences among populations and host preferences. This study examined the genetic differences among D. gallaeformans populations from different locations and host species and the phylogenetic relationships among them. Nematodes were collected from galls in plants from Costa Rica, Dominica, and Trinidad. The Cytochrome c oxidase 1 (cox1) region was sequenced from a total of 33 individual nematodes isolated from 33 different plant individuals, representing 21 species of Melastomataceae. Phylogenetic reconstructions, haplotype networks, and analysis of molecular variance showed that the species is monophyletic and has three major clades, which were mostly consistent with geographic location but not with host species. The first clade was composed by two subclades, one with individuals from Costa Rica and one with individuals from Dominica. The second and third clades comprised nematodes only from Trinidad. Overall, there is no evidence of host-species specialization in D. gallaeformans . Biocontrol efforts using the nematode against invasive Miconia could focus on geographical location matching but likely will not need to match host species.


2021 ◽  
Vol 12 ◽  
Author(s):  
Soumi Mitra ◽  
Matthew Pinch ◽  
Yashoda Kandel ◽  
Yiyi Li ◽  
Stacy D. Rodriguez ◽  
...  

Adult female mosquitoes rely on olfactory cues like carbon dioxide and other small molecules to find vertebrate hosts to acquire blood. The molecular physiology of the mosquito olfactory system is critical for their host preferences. Many laboratory strains of the yellow fever mosquito Aedes aegypti have been established since the late 19th century. These strains have been used for most molecular studies in this species. Some earlier comparative studies have identified significant physiological differences between different laboratory strains. In this study, we used a Y-tube olfactometer to determine the attraction of females of seven different strains of Ae. aegypti to a human host: UGAL, Rockefeller, Liverpool, Costa Rica, Puerto Rico, and two odorant receptor co-receptor (Orco) mutants Orco2 and Orco16. We performed RNA-seq using antennae of Rockefeller, Liverpool, Costa Rica, and Puerto Rico females. Our results showed that female Aedes aegypti from the Puerto Rico strain had significantly reduced attraction rates toward human hosts compared to all other strains. RNA-seq analyses of the antenna transcriptomes of Rockefeller, Liverpool, Costa Rica, and Puerto Rico strains revealed distinct differences in gene expression between the four strains, but conservation in gene expression patterns of known human-sensing genes. However, we identified several olfaction-related genes that significantly vary between strains, including receptors with significantly different expression in mosquitoes from the Puerto Rico strain and the other strains.


Insects ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (8) ◽  
pp. 715
Author(s):  
Gabriela Esparza-Diaz ◽  
Thiago Marconi ◽  
Carlos A. Avila ◽  
Raul T. Villanueva

The Rio Grande Valley is one of the most productive agricultural areas in the U.S and is located in the southernmost part of Texas. In October 2013, we detected an exotic plant bug, Nesidiocoris tenuis Reuter (Hemiptera: Miridae: Bryocorinae) occurring in the region. Nesidiocoris tenuis has zoophytophagous habits; however, in the absence of insect prey, it feeds on its plant hosts. After its morphological and genetic identification, this study monitored the population of N. tenuis in its introduction phase in commercial fields and corroborated its establishment in research fields for three years. Populations of N. tenuis were high during the fall and low during winter. This study found that N. tenuis populations were higher in tomato fields as compared to adjacent pepper, okra, and squash fields, indicating its host preferences during the introduction phase. Recurrent population growth patterns suggest that N. tenuis was established in Rio Grande Valley with permanent populations in tomato fields. In addition, N. tenuis populations were affected by tomato cultivar selection and by plastic mulch color. The presence of N. tenuis could establish a new trophic insect relationship for vegetable production. However, it is unknown if the presence of N. tenuis may help to control pests of economic importance, such as whiteflies in cotton, or become a pest on sesame, an emerging crop.


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