Current opinion in insect science最新文献

Tephritid fruit fly pests remain a considerable problem for agricultural fruit production around the world. New control methods that do not rely on synthetic insecticides are increasingly desirable to diversify tephritid pest management programs. Biological control through the release of parasitoid wasps has historically provided effective suppression of fruit fly pests, although molecular factors that influence the success of fruit fly parasitoids are understudied. Microbes have been demonstrated to facilitate myriad interactions between insects and their environment and have been the subject of recent investigation within tephritids. Specifically, the diversity and function of viruses found within fruit flies and associated parasitoids is an emerging field of research that has the potential to deepen our understanding of previously hidden factors that facilitate sustainable pest control. Most work to date has focused on identifying resident viral communities within fruit flies using metagenomic and metatranscriptomic sequencing approaches. Additionally, a growing body of evidence has revealed a multitude of functional dynamics that viruses have with fruit fly hosts, including vertically transmitted commensal viruses and parasitoid-vectored pathogens. Heritable viruses transmitted by fruit fly parasitoids, in particular, have been shown to play prominent roles in fruit fly multitrophic interactions, in which viral infection can shape the survival rate and host range of infected parasitoids. Furthermore, at least one parasitoid virus represents a lethal pathogen to a wide range of fruit fly pest species. Parasitoid viruses could therefore present novel opportunities to leverage natural antagonistic interactions for fruit fly pest control innovations.

Insects, the most diverse group of animals, exhibit remarkable adaptability, playing both crucial and problematic roles in ecosystems. Recent advancements in genomic technologies, such as high-throughput sequencing, have provided unprecedented insights into the genetic foundations of insect adaptation. This review explores key methodologies, including de novo and reference-guided genome assemblies, and highlights cutting-edge technologies like second and third-generation sequencing, and hybrid techniques. The article delves into the genetic mechanisms underlying insect adaptations, focusing on structural variants. Case studies, such as the Anopheles gambiae genome assembly and the genomic research on Drosophila melanogaster, demonstrate the practical applications of these technologies in understanding pesticide resistance, climate adaptation, and other evolutionary traits. This review underscores the transformative role of genomic tools in insect research, with significant implications for pest management, agriculture, and biodiversity conservation.

Insects are the only arthropod group to achieve powered flight, which facilitated their explosive radiation on land. It remains a significant challenge to understand the evolutionary transition from non-flying (apterygote) to flying (pterygote) insects due to the large gap in the fossil record. Under such situation, ontogenic information has historically been used to compensate fossil evidence. Recent evo-devo studies support and refine a paleontology-based classical hypothesis that an ancestral exite incorporated into the body wall contributed to the origin of insect wings. The modern hypothesis locates an ancestral precoxa leg segment with an exite within the hexapod lateral tergum, reframing the long-standing debate on the insect wing origin. A current focus is on the contributions of the incorporated exite homolog and surrounding tissues, such as the pleuron and the medial bona fide tergum, to wing evolution. In parallel, recent analyses of Paleozoic fossils have confirmed thoracic and abdominal lateral body outgrowths as transitional wing precursors, and suggest their possible role as respiratory organs in aquatic or semiaquatic environments. These recent studies have revised our understanding of the transition to flying insects. This review highlights recent progress in both evo-devo and paleontology, and discusses future challenges, including the evolution of metamorphic development.

Humans and insects inhabit very different perceptual worlds, so human experimenters need to be aware of their perceptual biases when investigating insect behaviour. In applied entomology human perceptual biases have been a barrier to the rational design, manufacture, and improvement of pest control devices that effectively exploit insect visual behaviour. This review describes how the influence of human perceptual bias on this area of applied entomology is being reduced by our expanding understanding of insect visual perception and use of visual modelling methods, and highlights several important challenges that are yet to be overcome.

Plants and invertebrates use chemical signals and cues to construct information about their environment. It is well reviewed that chemical signals play key roles in interactions between conspecific insects, such as sex pheromones for finding mates, and that plants transmit chemical signals to recruit natural enemies that kill herbivores. However, it is also known that chemicals emitted by natural enemies can influence insect herbivore physiology and behavior. The detection of chemical cues associated with the presence of natural enemies can influence herbivore movement, feeding, and reproduction, which may limit the damage herbivores inflict on their host plants. Plants detect chemical cues associated with herbivores, but less is known about whether plants also detect chemical cues of natural enemies or how this detection affects plant defense responses. In this review, we highlight what is known about how natural enemy chemical cues directly affect herbivores, how natural enemy cues indirectly affect herbivores through changes in host plant defenses, and we discuss the evolutionary ecology of plant and herbivore responses to natural enemy cues. Finally, we consider application of these concepts for insect pest management. Improving our understanding of how natural enemy chemical cues mediate multitrophic interactions provides a great opportunity for future exploration. CONDENSED ABSTRACT: Plants and invertebrates use chemical signals and cues to construct information about their environment. Detection of chemical cues from natural enemies can influence herbivore behavior and reduce herbivory. Plants detect chemical cues associated with herbivores, but less is known about whether plants detect cues of natural enemies or how detection affects plant defense responses. Here, we highlight what is known about how natural enemy chemical cues directly affect herbivores and how natural enemy cues indirectly affect herbivores through changes in plant defenses. We discuss the evolutionary ecology of plant and herbivore responses to natural enemy cues and consider applications for pest management.

Animals are exposed to changes in their environmental conditions daily. Such changes will become increasingly more erratic and unpredictable with ongoing climate change. Responses to changing environments are influenced by the genetic architecture of the traits under selection, and modified by a range of physiological, developmental, and behavioural changes resulting from phenotypic plasticity. Furthermore, the interactions between multiple environmental stressors to which organisms are exposed can generate unexpected phenotypic responses. Understanding how genetic and plastic variation contributes to the response to combined environmental stress will be key to predicting how animals will cope with climate change, and ultimately will define their ability to persist. Here, we review the approaches used to explore how animals respond to combined stressors, specifically nutrition and temperature, the physiological mechanisms that underlie such plastic responses, and how genetic variation alters this plasticity.

Insect populations are declining globally, with multiple potential drivers identified. However, experimental data are needed to understand their relative contributions. We highlight the sublethal effects of pesticides at field-relevant concentrations, often overlooked in standard environmental risk assessments (ERA), as significant contributors to these declines. Behavior, as an easily monitored high-level phenotype, reflects alterations at various phenotypic levels. We propose incorporating behavioral assays with AI-based analytical methods into ERA protocols to better assess the safety of molecules intended for large-scale field use. This approach aims to safeguard food supplies and protect vital ecosystems in the future.

Social insects often show remarkable behavioral plasticity, which is closely associated with their respective castes. The underpinnings of this plasticity are complex, involving genetic differences among individuals within a colony and regulation of gene expression at multiple levels. Post-transcriptional regulation, which increases the complexity of the transcriptome, plays a crucial role in the multilayer regulatory network that influences social insect behavior. We provide an overview of the impact of three post-transcriptional regulatory processes on the reproductive division of labor and worker division of labor in social insects: alternative splicing, RNA modifications, and noncoding RNAs. We also discuss the relationship between post-transcriptional regulation and chromatin modification.

The ability to associate time and location with food sources is an evolutionary advantage for foraging animals. We find highly sophisticated time memory capabilities especially in social insects, which require efficient foraging capabilities for colony provisioning. Honey bees are perfectly suitable to study time memory mechanisms: they possess an elaborated time memory combined with a relatively simple neuronal clock network and a smaller gene set compared with the mouse model organism. This review provides a short overview majorly across insects, which have demonstrated time memory capabilities, with a focus on time-place learning, and describes basic properties as well as state-of-the-art research connecting time memory with the circadian clock at the behavioral, molecular, and neuroanatomical levels. Despite a long history of research on time memory of honey bees, putative connections between clock and time memory have only recently been identified and imply a rather complex regulation mechanism with multiple signaling pathways.

Long-distance dispersal (LDD) provides a means for mosquitoes to invade new regions and spread adaptive alleles, including those conferring insecticide resistance. Most LDD takes place on human transport vessels and will typically be rarer and more directionally constrained than active flight but can connect populations and regions that are otherwise mutually inaccessible. These features make LDD worthy of specific consideration in mosquito research. This paper reviews recent evolutionary research on LDD and its consequences for mosquito populations and mosquito control. LDD is the main source of mosquito range expansions, and genomic methods can now trace the origins of new invasions to specific towns or cities. Genomic methods can also give a rough indication of the number of invaders, which if very small may lead to the stochastic loss of advantageous alleles during invasion bottlenecks. Once invasions are established, LDD spreads adaptive alleles between populations. Emerging insights into insecticide resistance evolution indicate that LDD has repeatedly spread resistance mutations across global species ranges, but these broad patterns are convoluted by two other evolutionary processes: parallel adaptation at the same gene or gene cluster and polygenic adaptation at different genes in different populations. Together, these processes have produced patterns of similarity and dissimilarity at resistance genes that are decoupled from geographical distance. LDD within cities is less well studied but is important for planning and evaluating local control efforts. Urban investigations of LDD may help identify areas experiencing weaker selection pressures from insecticides and isolated areas to target for control.