Climate change and global warming are of great concern to agriculture worldwide and are among the most discussed issues in today’s society. Climate parameters such as increased temperatures, rising atmospheric CO2 levels, and changing precipitation p...
Infections mediated by broad host range entomopathogenic fungi represent seminal observations that led to one of the first germ theories of disease and are a classic example of a co-evolutionary arms race between a pathogen and target hosts. These fu...
Pollination plays a significant role in the agriculture sector and serves as a basic pillar for crop production. Plants depend on vectors to move pollen, which can include water, wind, and animal pollinators like bats, moths, hoverflies, birds, bees,...
Integrated Pest Management (IPM) is a leading complement and alternative to synthetic pesticides and a form of sustainable intensification with particular importance for tropical smallholders. Global pesticide use has grown over the past 20 years to...
The temperature of the environment is one of the most important abiotic factors affecting the life of insects. As poikilotherms, their body temperature is not constant, and they rely on various strategies to minimize the risk of thermal stress. They...
Mosquitoes represent the major arthropod vectors of human disease worldwide transmitting malaria, lymphatic filariasis, and arboviruses such as dengue virus and Zika virus. Unfortunately, no treatment (in the form of vaccines or drugs) is available f...
The rapidly growing population has increased demand for protein quantities and, following a shortage of plant-based feed protein sources and the prohibition of animal-based feed protein, has forced the search for new sources of protein. Therefore, hu...
Fruit flies (Diptera: Tephritidae) are among the most economically important pest species in the world, attacking a wide range of fruits and fleshy vegetables throughout tropical and sub-tropical areas. These species are such devastating crop pests t...
This study examined the impact of diet protein and carbohydrate percentages as well as moisture on the immature development, survivorship, and resulting adult longevity and egg production of the black soldier fly, Hermetia illucens (L.) (Diptera: Str...
The greater wax moth, Galleria mellonella Linnaeus, is a ubiquitous pest of the honeybee, Apis mellifera Linnaeus, and Apis cerana Fabricius. The greater wax moth larvae burrow into the edge of unsealed cells with pollen, bee brood, and honey through...
Ectosymbioses among bark beetles (Curculionidae, Scolytinae) and fungi (primarily ophiostomatoid Ascomycetes) are widespread and diverse. Associations range from mutualistic to commensal, and from facultative to obligate. Some fungi are highly specif...
The use of synthetic insecticides has been a solution to reduce mosquito-borne disease transmission for decades. Currently, no single intervention is sufficient to reduce the global disease burden caused by mosquitoes. Problems associated with extens...
The burden of gene transfer from one mosquito generation to the next falls on the female and her eggs. The selection of an oviposition site that guarantees egg and larval survival is a critical step in the reproductive process. The dangers associated...
Pollinator nutritional ecology provides insights into plant–pollinator interactions, coevolution, and the restoration of declining pollinator populations. Bees obtain their protein and lipid nutrient intake from pollen, which is essential for l...
The dramatic increase in soil degradation in the last few decades has led to the need to identify methods to define not only soil quality but also, in a holistic approach, soil health. In the past twenty years, indices based on living communities hav...
In the past centuries, viruses have benefited from globalization to spread across the globe, infecting new host species and populations. A growing number of viruses have been documented in the western honey bee, Apis mellifera. Several of these contr...
The fall armyworm (Spodoptera frugiperda) is a pest of tropical origin which recently invaded Africa, the Far East and Australia. Temperature, therefore, plays an important role in its invasion biology, since this pest does not go into diapause. The...
The holometabolous insect order Trichoptera (caddisflies) includes more known species than all of the other primarily aquatic orders of insects combined. They are distributed unevenly; with the greatest number and density occurring in the Oriental Bi...
Fall armyworm (FAW) was reported for the first time in Africa in 2016. FAW is widely distributed in Ethiopia, causing significant damage to maize. Nine synthetic insecticides belonging to different chemical groups and 11 pesticidal plants (botanicals...
Whitefly, Bemisia tabaci (Gennadius) (Hemiptera: Aleyrodidae), consists of genetically diverse species known to cause significant destruction in several crops around the world. Nymphs and adults of B. tabaci cause damage to plants during feeding, and...
Since the first identification of the silkworm moth sex pheromone in 1959, significant research has been reported on identifying and unravelling the sex pheromone mechanisms of hundreds of insect species. In the past two decades, the number of resear...
The increased urbanization of a growing global population makes imperative the development of sustainable integrated pest management (IPM) strategies for urban pest control. This emphasizes pests that are closely associated with the health and wellbe...
The selective application of insecticides is one of the cornerstones of integrated pest management (IPM) and management strategies for pest resistance to insecticides. The present work provides a comprehensive overview of the traditional and new meth...
This work is intended as a general and concise overview of Ephemeroptera biology, diversity, and services provided to humans and other parts of our global array of freshwater and terrestrial ecosystems. The Ephemeroptera, or mayflies, are a small but...
The biodiversity of useful organisms, e.g., insects, decreases due to many environmental factors and increasing anthropopressure. Multifunctional tissues, such as the fat body, are key elements in the proper functioning of invertebrate organisms and...
In this review, we describe the role of plant-derived biochemicals that are toxic to insect pests. Biotic stress in plants caused by insect pests is one of the most significant problems, leading to yield losses. Synthetic pesticides still play a sign...
Parasites can dramatically reduce the fitness of their hosts, and natural selection should favor defense mechanisms that can protect hosts against disease. Much work has focused on understanding genetic and physiological immunity against parasites, b...
Beneficial arthropods provide many important ecosystem services. In agroecosystems, pollination and control of crop pests provide benefits worth billions of dollars annually. Effective sampling and monitoring of these beneficial arthropods is essenti...
Optimization algorithms are search methods where the goal is to find an optimal solution to a problem, in order to satisfy one or more objective functions, possibly subject to a set of constraints. Studies of social animals and social insects have re...
Arboviral mosquito vectors are key targets for the surveillance and control of vector-borne diseases worldwide. In recent years, changes to the global distributions of these species have been a major research focus, aimed at predicting outbreaks of a...
The scientific community working in the field of insect pathology is experiencing an increasing academic and industrial interest in the discovery and development of new bioinsecticides as environmentally friendly pest control tools to be integrated,...
Insects have long been consumed as part of the diets of many Asian, African, and South American cultures. However, despite international agencies such as the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations advocating the nutritional, environm...
The fall armyworm, Spodoptera frugiperda, a moth originating from tropical and subtropical America, has recently become a serious pest of cereals in sub-Saharan Africa. Biological control offers an economically and environmentally safer alternative t...
Urbanization is a major anthropogenic driver of decline for ecologically and economically important taxa including bees. Despite their generally negative impact on pollinators, cities can display a surprising degree of biodiversity compared to other...
The fall armyworm (FAW), Spodoptera frugiperda, threatens maize production in Africa. A survey was conducted to determine the distribution of FAW and its natural enemies and damage severity in Ethiopia, Kenya and Tanzania in 2017 and 2018. A total of...
The genus Spodoptera (Lepidoptera: Noctuidae) includes species that are among the most important crop pests in the world. These polyphagous species are able to feed on many plants, including corn, rice and cotton. In addition to their ability to adap...
Yellow mealworm (Tenebrio molitor L.) represents a sustainable source of proteins and fatty acids for feed and food. Industrial production of mealworms necessitates optimized processing techniques, where drying as the first postharvest procedure is o...
Silk fibroin (SF) is a natural protein (biopolymer) extracted from the cocoons of Bombyx mori L. (silkworm). It has many properties of interest in the field of biotechnology, the most important being biodegradability, biocompatibility and robust mech...
Though they are relatively understudied, non-native bees are ubiquitous and have enormous potential economic and environmental impacts. These impacts may be positive or negative, and are often unquantified. In this manuscript, I review literature on...
Pyrethroid insecticides are widely used to control insect pests and human disease vectors. Voltage-gated sodium channels are the primary targets of pyrethroid insecticides. Mutations in the sodium channel have been shown to be responsible for pyrethr...
Western honey bees, Apis mellifera, live in highly eusocial colonies that are each typically headed by a single queen. The queen is the sole reproductive female in a healthy colony, and because long-term colony survival depends on her ability to prod...
The biological concept of stress originated in mammals, where a “General Adaptation Syndrome” describes a set of common integrated physiological responses to diverse noxious agents. Physiological mechanisms of stress in mammals have been extensively...
Mosquitoes act as vectors of pathogens that cause most life-threatening diseases, such as malaria, Dengue, Chikungunya, Yellow fever, Zika, West Nile, Lymphatic filariasis, etc. To reduce the transmission of these mosquito-borne diseases in humans, s...
Honey bees (Apis mellifera) are constantly dealing with threats from pathogens, pests, pesticides and poor nutrition. It is critically important to understand how honey bees’ natural immune responses (individual immunity) and collective behavioral de...
Beekeepers providing pollination services for California almond orchards have reported observing dead or malformed brood during and immediately after almond bloom—effects that they attribute to pesticide exposure. The objective of this study wa...
Grooming is a well-recognized, multipurpose, behavior in arthropods and vertebrates. In this paper, we review the literature to highlight the physical function, neurophysiological mechanisms, and role that grooming plays in insect defense against pat...
The cat flea Ctenocephalides felis felis (Bouché) is the most important ectoparasite of domestic cats and dogs worldwide. It has been two decades since the last comprehensive review concerning the biology and ecology of C. f. felis and its management...
Mosquitoes live under the endless threat of infections from different kinds of pathogens such as bacteria, parasites, and viruses. The mosquito defends itself by employing both physical and physiological barriers that resist the entry of the pathogen...
First detected in Switzerland in 2011, the invasive Drosophila suzukii, spotted wing drosophila, has caused recurring costs for growers of berries and fruit. Recommended management approaches rely on a set of methods, tailored to suit crop requiremen...
Edible insects are gaining more and more attention as a sustainable source of animal protein for food and feed in the future. In Belgium, some insect products can be found on the market, and consumers are sourcing fresh insects from fishing stores or...
