Search results for " insects"
showing 10 items of 50 documents
The role of native flower visitors in pollinating Opuntia ficus-indica (L.) Mill., naturalized in Sicily
2011
Abstract The role of insects in pollination and consequently in fruit set and quality was assessed in two commercial orchards of the cactus pear, Opuntia ficus-indica (L.) Mill., in Agrigento Province, Sicily. In 1997, insects visiting flowers were sampled during May–June (the first bloom) and July (the second bloom, induced by the “scozzolatura” practise). More than 50 insect species belonging to 10 orders were collected in May–June, while only five species of Hymenoptera Apoidea were collected in July. The quality of fruits arising from the second bloom showed that Hymenoptera alone were able to guarantee effective pollination. To verify the role of insects in pollination in 1996 (during …
Supplementary data for Ün et. al. 2020 "Cytoplasmic incompatibility between New and Old World populations of a tramp ant"
2020
Supplementary annotation and phylogenetic data. See included README file for details.
Are Cover Crops Affecting the Quality and Sustainability of Fruit Production?
2021
The study of the interaction between fruit trees and cover crops has been addressed in numerous works over the last 50 years or more, evidencing the need to evolve from a productive orchard to an orchard that plays different ecosystem roles in terms of environmental sustainability rather than just productivity. This review, through an analysis of the scientific literature since the 1950s, highlights the development of sustainable soil management models in fruit tree orchards, mostly considering the relationship with fruit quality traits and with the ecosystem services that result from the adoption of cover crops, aiming at identifying and formulating technical recommendations in perennial o…
Experimental increase of worker diversity benefits brood production in ants
2021
Background The reproductive division of labor of eusocial insects, whereby one or several queens monopolize reproduction, evolved in a context of high genetic relatedness. However, many extant eusocial species have developed strategies that decrease genetic relatedness in their colonies, suggesting some benefits of the increased diversity. Multiple studies support this hypothesis by showing positive correlations between genetic diversity and colony fitness, as well as finding effects of experimental manipulations of diversity on colony performance. However, alternative explanations could account for most of these reports, and the benefits of diversity on performance in eusocial insects stil…
New records of gall-inducer and inquiline insects in a few mediterranean countries, with biological notes
2014
An annotated list of some gall-inducing and inquiline insects found on herbaceous plants and trees in Italy and in other few Mediterranean countries is reported. Among the gall-inducer species, Phanacis phoenixopodos (Mayr, 1882) is new for the Italian peninsula, Callirhytis rufescens (Mayr, 1882), Andricus quercusramuli (L., 1761) and Plagiotrochus amenti Kieffer, 1901 (Cynipidae: Hymenoptera) are new for Sicily; the latter was previously cited from Italy without collecting data. Oecocecis guyonella Guenée, 1870 was found in Libya and Amblypalpis olivierella Ragonot, 1886 (Gelechiidae: Lepidoptera) in Jordan, Libya, Northern Yemen, and the United Arab Emirates. In addition, Saphonecrus gal…
Water striders (Heteroptera: Gerromorpha: Gerridae) of Romania with an update on the distribution of Gerris gibbifer and G. maculatus in southeastern…
2018
The Romanian fauna comprises two species of Aquarius Schellenberg, 1800, eight species of Gerris Fabricius, 1794 and one species of Limnoporus Stål, 1868, and we hereby update the distribution and provide insights on the phenology and ecology of all eleven species in this country. We furthermore update the distribution of the two closely related species Gerris gibbifer Schummel, 1832 and G. maculatus Tamanini, 1946 in southeastern Europe. Gerris maculatus is recorded for the first time from Hungary, Montenegro and Slovenia, and the first detailed localities from Romania and Serbia are given. All bibliographic records of G. gibbifer from Romania, Macedonia and Serbia are based on misidentifi…
Neonicotinoids from coated seeds toxic for honeydew-feeding biological control agents
2021
Seed coating (‘seed treatment’) is the leading delivery method of neonicotinoid insecticides in major crops such as soybean, wheat, cotton and maize. However, this prophylactic use of neonicotinoids is widely discussed from the standpoint of environmental costs. Growing soybean plants from neonicotinoid-coated seeds in field, we demonstrate that soybean aphids (Aphis glycines) survived the treatment, and excreted honeydew containing neonicotinoids. Biochemical analyses demonstrated that honeydew excreted by the soybean aphid contained substantial concentrations of neonicotinoids even one month after sowing of the crop. Consuming this honeydew reduced the longevity of two biological control …
Sustainable Weed, Disease and Pest Management in Medicinal and Aromatic Plants
2015
As for all other crops, in MAPs as well, weeds, diseases and pests are important yield-reducing factors, which may severely curtain biomass production and, that is maybe more important, may affect several qualitative aspects of production. Research about this topic is generally lacking, for two main reasons: the first is that MAPs are generally grown on rather limited areas, and the incidence of specific pests and diseases rarely takes a relevance outside rather narrow boundaries. The second reason is that the economical importance of MAPs is much lower than that ascribed to the “major” crops, which the bigger efforts of research are addressed to. In the changing scenario of latter years, h…
IPM-recommended insecticides harm beneficial insects through contaminated honeydew
2020
The use of some systemic insecticides has been banned in Europe because they are toxic to beneficial insects when these feed on nectar. A recent study shows that systemic insecticides can also kill beneficial insects when they feed on honeydew. Honeydew is the sugar-rich excretion of hemipterans and is the most abundant carbohydrate source for beneficial insects such as pollinators and biological control agents in agroecosystems. Here, we investigated whether the toxicity of contaminated honeydew depends on i) the hemipteran species that excretes the honeydew; ii) the active ingredient, and iii) the beneficial insect that feeds on it. HPLC-MS/MS analyses demonstrated that the systemic insec…
Exposing the structure of an Arctic food web
2015
15 pages; International audience; How food webs are structured has major implications for their stability and dynamics. While poorly studied to date, arctic food webs are commonly assumed to be simple in structure, with few links per species. If this is the case, then different parts of the web may be weakly connected to each other, with populations and species united by only a low number of links. We provide the first highly resolved description of trophic link structure for a large part of a high-arctic food web. For this purpose, we apply a combination of recent techniques to describing the links between three predator guilds (insectivorous birds, spiders, and lepidopteran parasitoids) a…