Insect pests in the makingof thousands of known species of Drosophila fruit flies just one is known as a crop pest depositing eggs inside ripening fruit
Drosophila flies found worldwide lay their eggs in rotting fruit. Drosophila suzukii also referred to as spotted-wing Drosophila
because the male has large black blotches on his wings (as do males of several other closely related species) is able to penetrate the skins of ripening fruit
Previously it was thought that Drosophila would just lay eggs on rotting fruit. D. suzukii apparently originated in Asia
They also offered lab-raised flies different fruits and observed whether they were able to lay eggs in them.
while the other flies have much smaller ovipositors similar to those of other Drosophila. They do have the same pattern of bristles
In the lab both D. suzukii and D. subpulchrella flies could penetrate the skins of cherries and raspberries and deposit eggs in them.
D. suzukii flies but not D. subpulchrella made holes in grape skins although they laid relatively few eggs there.
when the Drosophila flies could penetrate fruit they were not very good at it taking several minutes and multiple attempts.
Laying eggs inside ripening fruit is probably a recent development for Drosophila. Kopp speculated that as flies compete for good food sources in
which to lay their eggs there would be an advantage in being able to colonize fresher and firmer fruit.
Controlling the flies will be said challenging Kopp. Unlike the notorious Mediterranean fruit fly or Medfly Drosophila flies are generalists with a wide range of food sources and breeding sites and a generation time of less than two weeks.
We want to identify which flies are dangerous and which are said not Atallah. D. subpulchrella has not yet been identified as a pest in the western world
but it may have the potential to become one. The work was published Feb 26 in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B. Story Source:
a highly specialized species of tephritid fruit fly whose larvae actually feed on the seeds of the native Barberry was found to have a tenfold higher population density on its new host plant the Oregon grape reports Dr. Harald Auge a biologist at the UFZ.
and then cut open to examine any infestation by the larvae of the tephritid fruit fly (Rhagoletis meigenii).
This mechanism is employed also to defend it from the tephritid fruit fly. If a seed is infested with the parasite later on the developing larva will feed on both seeds.
But how does the Barberry know what is in store for it after the tephritid fruit fly has punctured a berry?
The Oregon grape that is closely related to the Barberry has been living in Europe for some 200 years with the risk of being infested by the tephritid fruit fly
#Sterile flies save food crops, millions of dollars in eradication effortsirradiated sterile flies dropped over seaports
The technique has been used effectively against the Mediterranean fruit fly called the Medfly and the cattle-infesting screw-worm fly among others.
Florida spends roughly $6 million a year using SIT to prevent Mediterranean fruit fly infestations while California spends about $17 million a year.
Because of the inherent dangers in importing even one Mediterranean fruit fly into the state in their recent studies LÃ pez-Martã nez and Hahn investigated the physiological effects of applying low-oxygen treatments prior
the Caribbean fruit fly and the invasive cactus moth. The low-oxygen effect has been known for decades
Some operations that rear and sterilize insects such as one in Guatemala that produces many of the sterile medflies dropped over Florida's major ports roughly every seven days do employ low-oxygen conditions called hypoxia or anoxia.
#Genetic secret of mosquito resistance to DDT, bed net insecticides discoveredresearchers from LSTM have found that a single genetic mutation causes resistance to DDT
They have shown also that this gene makes insects resistant to pyrethroids raising the concern that GSTE2 gene could protect mosquitoes against the major insecticides used in public health.
Mosquitoes (Anopheles funestus) are vectors of malaria and most strategies for combating the spread of the disease focus on control of mosquito populations using insecticides.
The spread of resistance genes could hold back efforts to prevent the disease. The authors say that knowing how resistance works will help to develop tests
and stop these genes from spreading amongst mosquito populations. Charles Wondji said:''We found a population of mosquitoes fully resistant to DDT (no mortality
when they were treated with DDT) but also to pyrethroids. So we wanted to elucidate the molecular basis of that resistance in the population
'They took mosquitoes from Pahou in Benin which were resistant to DDT and pyrethroids and mosquitoes from a laboratory fully susceptible strain and did a genome wide comparison study.
They identified the GSTE2 gene as being upregulated--producing a lot of protein--in Benin mosquitoes. They found that a single mutation (L119f) changed a non-resistant version of the GSTE2 gene to a DDT resistant version.
They designed a DNA-based diagnostic test for this type of resistance (metabolic resistance) and confirmed that this mutation was found in mosquitoes from other areas of the world with DDT resistance
but was completely absent in regions without. X-ray crystallography of the protein coded by the gene illustrated exactly how the mutation conferred resistance by opening up the'active site'where DDT molecules bind to the protein so more can be broken down.
This means that the mosquito can survive by breaking down the poison into nontoxic substances..
They also introduced the gene into fruit flies (Drosophila melanogaster) and found they became resistant to DDT
and pyrethroids compared to controls confirming that just this single mutation is enough to make mosquitoes resistant to both DDT and permethrin.
'For the first time we have been able to identify a molecular marker for metabolic resistance (the type of resistance most likely to lead to control failure) in a mosquito population
Specifically we looked at aggressive behavior in wasps bees fruit flies and mice and found a few genes that are associated consistently with aggression.
The team then compared the wasp results to gene expression data already available in honey bees fruit flies and mice.
In solitary species like fruit flies and mice the same set of aggression genes controls fighting between males over territory.
or Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer sensors that fly aboard NASA's Terra and Aqua satellites make daily observations over the huge expanse of Amazon forests.
#Bigheaded fossil flies track major ecological revolutionsimon Fraser University's Bruce Archibald and Rolf Mathewes are part of a team of biologists including Christian Kehlmaier from Germany's Senkenberg
Natural history Collections that has discovered three new extinct fossil species of bigheaded flies. According to their research published recently by The Canadian Entomologist these fossils show their early evolution parallels an ecological revolution one that formed the character of our modern natural communities.
The three new species of fossil bigheaded flies are members of the living family Pipunculidae.
Bigheaded flies are a group of bizarre insects whose round heads are covered almost entirely by their bulging compound eyes
By the time of these flies in the Eocene however forests had diversified again but this time with many new kinds of flowering plants that are familiar to us today such as birches maples and many others.
and herbivorous insects and with them diversification of their insect predators including these bigheaded flies.
and flies with a cyclic lift motion like a helicopter. It has two moving parts
so that they can be attached to smaller insects like mosquitos and fruit flies for future studies. Â Photo:
and they were living on fruit flies, but now theyre on their own living without too much food. They can live a long time without food,
and the bug that lands on your arm isn t a fly but something green and a little fuzzy.
A mosquito doesn t really have 47 teeth(#50; it has serrated a proboscis. Pennsylvania isn t really misspelled on the Liberty bell(#300)
Besides its sound theoretical basis in the well-known mechanisms of natural selection, the Evolution Theory of Aging has also been tested directly in Drosophila melanogaster by Michael Rose (UCI Professor and cofounder of Genescient.
Dr. Rose started with 5 lines of wild type Drosophila flies and selected for reproductive longevity over a 27-year period.
Genescient has carried out several independent experiments to verify that these Methuselah flies are lived indeed long compared to wild type flies.
I carefully monitored the most recent comparative lifespan experiment done in 2010 (Fig. 2). The Methuselah flies (O populations) far outlive their unselected wild type fly B populations.
The selected Methuselah O flies have some 3 or 4 times longer mean lifespan than the non-selected wild type B flies (Fig. 2). This selection experiment is a dramatic verification that evolution modulates the aging process.
Studying gene expression in the wild type and Methuselah flies, Genescient has shown that several hundred genes have altered an expression in the Methuselah flies.
In late 2010, Genescient sequenced the DNA of the wild type and Methuselah flies and again found that more than a hundred genes appear to be altered in the long-lived Methuselah flies.
These experimental results are fully consistent with the Evolution Theory of Aging, which predicts that aging leads to poorly functioning organisms as natural selection for optimal gene function wanes with age.
In summary, we age because of the declining force of natural selection in adult life, which leads to unfit gene expression with age.
and thereby extend Drosophila lifespan. Unfortunately, none of the single compound nutraceuticals tested appeared to significantly extend fly lifespan in our longevity screens.
Drosophila Longevity Studies Using Treatment with Stemcell 100 The current Stemcell 100 herbal blend has gone through extensive longevity testing with Drosophila fruit flies.
The Drosophila longevity study (see Figs 3 and 4 below) included three cages of fruit flies that were treated with Stemcell 100 (T1 to T3)
Each cage started with 500 fruit flies including 250 males and 250 females. The experiment showed that mean lifespan more than doubled with a 123%increase.
While fruit flies are not people, they are more like us than you might think. Drosophila has a heart and circulatory system,
and the most common cause of death is heart failure. Like humans and other mammals (e g. mice), it is quite difficult to increase their lifespan significantly.
The doubling of mean lifespan by Stemcell 100 outperforms every lifespan enhancing treatment ever tested in flies including experiments using genetic modification and dietary restriction.
The longest living fruit fly receiving Stemcell 100 lived 89 days compared to the longest living untreated control
It is possible that the single longest living fruit fly lived longer for other reasons such as genetic mutation;
For example, the oldest 5%of the treated fruit flies lived 77%longer than the oldest 5%of the control group (see Fig. 4 below
< Back - Next >
Overtext Web Module V3.0 Alpha
Copyright Semantic-Knowledge, 1994-2011