Eco-friendly management strategies of insect pests: long-term performance of rosemary essential oil encapsulated into chitosan and gum Arabic.

This study focused on encapsulation of Rosmarinus officinalis essential oil (EO) on chitosan and gum Arabic matrix in various ratios and with varying essential oil concentrations. Additionally, UV/VIS spectroscopy was used to determine cumulative-release profiles. The insecticidal activity was tested against Tribolium castaneum and Oryzaephilus surinamensis, both pests of stored products. In terms of encapsulation efficiency (EE%) and loading capacity (LC%), capsules had EE at 45.8% and LC at 2.31%. Furthermore, many minor compounds were lost after encapsulation, until identifying only 1,8-cineole, α-terpineol, and camphor after 60 d of storage. The fumigant tests demonstrated that encapsulated EO exhibited an effective control against insect pest during storage periods, namely, 30, 45, and 60 d with 99, 66, and 46% mortality for T. castaneum and 100, 84, 82% mortality for O. surinamensis.

Wolbachia causes cytoplasmic incompatibility but not male-killing in a grain pest beetle.

The endosymbiotic Wolbachia is one of the most common intracellular bacteria known in arthropods and nematodes. Its ability for reproductive manipulation can cause unequal inheritance to male and female offspring, allowing the manipulator to spread, but potentially also impact the evolutionary dynamics of infected hosts. Estimated to be present in up to 66% of insect species, little is known about the phenotypic impact of Wolbachia within the order Coleoptera. Here, we describe the reproductive manipulation by the Wolbachia strain wSur harboured by the sawtoothed grain beetle Oryzaephilus surinamensis (Coleoptera, Silvanidae), through a combination of genomics approaches and bioassays. The Wolbachia strain wSur belongs to supergroup B that contains well-described reproductive manipulators of insects and encodes a pair of cytoplasmic incompatibility factor (cif) genes, as well as multiple homologues of the WO-mediated killing (wmk) gene. A phylogenetic comparison with wmk homologues of wMel of Drosophila melanogaster identified 18 wmk copies in wSur, including one that is closely related to the wMel male-killing homologue. However, further analysis of this particular wmk gene revealed an eight-nucleotide deletion leading to a stop-codon and subsequent reading frame shift midsequence, probably rendering it nonfunctional. Concordantly, utilizing a Wolbachia-deprived O. surinamensis population and controlled mating pairs of wSur-infected and noninfected partners, we found no experimental evidence for male-killing. However, a significant ~50% reduction of hatching rates in hybrid crosses of uninfected females with infected males indicates that wSur is causing cytoplasmic incompatibility. Thus, Wolbachia also represents an important determinant of host fitness in Coleoptera.

Utilizing low oxygen to mitigate resistance of stored product insects to phosphine.

BACKGROUND: Data are provided on the utilization of modified atmospheres, at a commercial scale, against stored product insect populations that are resistant to phosphine. The method is evaluated on different populations of two major stored-product beetle species, Rhyzopertha dominica and Oryzaephilus surinamensis. The trials were carried out in commercial facilities, in which nitrogen was introduced through an embedded nitrogen generator. Each chamber contained three or four pallets of either currants or herbs. A computational model was developed to evaluate the nitrogen concentration. RESULTS: In most trials, 100% mortality was recorded for both beetle species and all populations, regardless of the temperature and exposure intervals tested. Control progeny production ranged between 20 and 45 adults per vial for R. dominica, and 29 and 27 adults per vial for O. surinamensis. Simulation results reveal that nitrogen can easily penetrate the currants, and its concentration is uniform (differences are below 1.5%) across the pallet. Additionally, the simulation model revealed that lower temperatures do not have an impact on the nitrogen concentration profiles. CONCLUSIONS: The modified atmosphere applications evaluated here were proved to be effective for all populations, regardless of the level of resistance to phosphine, and any survival could be attributed to the short exposure intervals. Modified atmosphere applications can be effective at a considerably short exposure interval, even at 2.5 days, which is an incontestable advantage for the use of this method against insects, at exposures comparable with those of commercial fumigations. © 2022 Society of Chemical Industry.

Nutritional symbionts enhance structural defence against predation and fungal infection in a grain pest beetle.

Many insects benefit from bacterial symbionts that provide essential nutrients and thereby extend the hosts' adaptive potential and their ability to cope with challenging environments. However, the implications of nutritional symbioses for the hosts' defence against natural enemies remain largely unstudied. Here, we investigated whether the cuticle-enhancing nutritional symbiosis of the saw-toothed grain beetle Oryzaephilus surinamensis confers protection against predation and fungal infection. We exposed age-defined symbiotic and symbiont-depleted (aposymbiotic) beetles to two antagonists that must actively penetrate the cuticle for a successful attack: wolf spiders (Lycosidae) and the fungal entomopathogen Beauveria bassiana. While young beetles suffered from high predation and fungal infection rates regardless of symbiont presence, symbiotic beetles were able to escape this period of vulnerability and reach high survival probabilities significantly faster than aposymbiotic beetles. To understand the mechanistic basis of these differences, we conducted a time-series analysis of cuticle development in symbiotic and aposymbiotic beetles by measuring cuticular melanisation and thickness. The results reveal that the symbionts accelerate their host's cuticle formation and thereby enable it to quickly reach a cuticle quality threshold that confers structural protection against predation and fungal infection. Considering the widespread occurrence of cuticle enhancement via symbiont-mediated tyrosine supplementation in beetles and other insects, our findings demonstrate how nutritional symbioses can have important ecological implications reaching beyond the immediate nutrient-provisioning benefits.

Carbon Dioxide-Enriched Atmosphere to Control Oryzaephilus surinamensis L. On Stored Saqie Date Fruits.

<b>Background and Objective:</b> Control of the stored date insects by an eco-friendly method is essential to maintain the fruit for prolonged periods, especially that dates are eaten fresh. The search for a safe method, as an alternative to commonly used chemical pesticides, is needed. The objective is to investigate CO₂ enriched atmosphere on the Mortality Percentage (MP) of the Saw-toothed grain beetle, <i>O. surinamensis</i>, life stages with special emphasis on reducing damage to stored dates. <b>Materials and Methods:</b> The effect of high levels of CO₂ as an alternative control method against the Saw-toothed grain beetle, <i>Oryzaephilus surinamensis</i> L., at different life stages was studied on infested 'Saqie' dates. Four CO₂ pressures (25, 50, 75 and 90 kPa, balance is nitrogen) were tested for 6, 12, 18, 24, 48, 72 and 96 hrs intervals. The response of different life stages of <i>O. surinamensis</i> to the different treatments varied according to CO₂ level, developmental stage and exposure period. <b>Results:</b> Mortality (%) was higher during the larval stage, followed by adults, pupae and eggs, in descending order. The larvae and adult stages were more sensitive to CO₂ treatment than the pupal and egg. Exposure time was more effective on eggs, larval and adult MP than the CO₂ atmosphere level. Mortality% at 96 hrs exposure time was almost 100% with CO₂ atmospheres of 50, 75 and 90 kPa. Mathematical equations were developed to model the relationship between mortality% and CO₂ treatments using multiple regression analyses for each life stage. <b>Conclusion:</b> The results confirmed that CO₂ could be applied to final food products during packaging to control the residual occurrence of insect pests after storage and before the packaging process to prevent further infestation in the final packages.

Fumigation Activity against Phosphine-Resistant Tribolium castaneum (Coleoptera: Tenebrionidae) Using Carbonyl Sulfide.

Phosphine resistance is occurring among stored-grain pests worldwide. This study investigated the fumigation activity of phosphine (PH3) and carbonyl sulfide (COS) against domestic strain (d-strain) Tribolium castaneum, resistance strain (r-strain) T. castaneum and Oryzaephilus surinamensis. All developmental stages of the pests were exposed to two fumigants (PH3 and COS), and the fumigation activity according to the dose and exposure time was evaluated in a 12-L desiccator and 0.5 m3 fumigation chamber. The rice sorption rate and quality following exposure to thetwofumigants were evaluated. The mortality was 2.9% in r-strain T. castaneum, 49.5% in d-strain T. castaneum and 99.2% in O. surinamensis when 2 mg/L PH3 was used in a 12-L desiccator for 4 h. However, all pest developmental stages showed 100% mortality after 24 h of exposure in the 0.5 m3 fumigation chamber, except for the r-strain T. castaneum. A mortalityof 100% was observed in all of the r-strain T. castaneum developmental stages at an exposure time of 192 h. For COS applied at 40.23 mg/L and 50 g/m3 in the 12-L desiccator and the 0.5 m3 fumigation chamber, respectively, 100% mortality was observed across all developmental stages regardless of species and strain. The sorption of COS was 10% higher than that of PH3, but there was no significant difference in rice quality compared to that in the control. Therefore, this study suggests that COS can be used for controlling T. castaneum resistant to PH3.

Metabolic Cost of a Nutritional Symbiont Manifests in Delayed Reproduction in a Grain Pest Beetle.

Animals engage in a plethora of mutualistic interactions with microorganisms that can confer various benefits to their host but can also incur context-dependent costs. The sawtoothed grain beetle Oryzaephilus surinamensis harbors nutritional, intracellular Bacteroidetes bacteria that supplement precursors for the cuticle synthesis and thereby enhance desiccation resistance of its host. Experimental elimination of the symbiont impairs cuticle formation and reduces fitness under desiccation stress but does not disrupt the host's life cycle. For this study, we first demonstrated that symbiont populations showed the strongest growth at the end of metamorphosis and then declined continuously in males, but not in females. The symbiont loss neither impacted the development time until adulthood nor adult mortality or lifespan. Furthermore, lifetime reproduction was not influenced by the symbiont presence. However, symbiotic females started to reproduce almost two weeks later than aposymbiotic ones. Thus, symbiont presence incurs a metabolic and context-dependent fitness cost to females, probably due to a nutrient allocation trade-off between symbiont growth and sexual maturation. The O. surinamensis symbiosis thereby represents an experimentally amenable system to study eco-evolutionary dynamics under variable selection pressures.

Evaluation of Microwave and Ozone Disinfections on the Color Characteristics of Iranian Export Raisins through an Image Processing Technique.

Raisins are one of the most important Iranian export products but are threatened by various storage pests. Because of the disadvantages of fumigants, we evaluated alternative microwave and ozone methods for their disinfection and the side effects on raisin qualities. To perform microwave disinfection, the studied raisin samples were exposed to microwave powers of 450, 720, and 900 W for 20, 30, 40, and 50 s. Also, ozone treatments included various combinations of ozone concentrations (2, 3, and 5 ppm) and exposure times (15, 30, 45, 60, and 90 min). An image processing technique was implemented to determine the color changes of raisins in terms of lightness, redness, yellowness, total color difference, chroma, and hue angle. The results revealed that increasing the microwave power and exposure time might lead to further changes of the previously mentioned color characteristics. Compared with the microwave treatments, ozone treatments had fewer effects on those features. Generally, microwave and ozone methods could successfully disinfect Oryzaephilus surinamensis in raisins, with acceptable changes in all the color characteristics. Hence, the previously mentioned methods are proposed as alternative chemical fumigants.

Characterization of the complete mitochondrial genome of Oryzaephilus surinamensis Linne (Insecta: Coleoptera: Silvanidae) from Xichuan.

The saw-toothed grain beetle, Oryzaephilus surinamensis Linné, is a well-known stored-product insect. Beetles were obtained from Xichuan County and the mitochondrial genome was characterized (GenBank accession number MN535903). The mitogenome consists of a circular DNA molecule of 15,941 bp, with only 27.36% GC content. It comprises 13 protein-coding, 22 tRNA, and 2 rDNA genes. The protein-coding genes have typical ATN (Met) initiation codons and are terminated by typical TAN stop codons.

A Novel, Extremely Elongated, and Endocellular Bacterial Symbiont Supports Cuticle Formation of a Grain Pest Beetle.

The saw-toothed grain beetle, Oryzaephilus surinamensis (Silvanidae), is a cosmopolitan stored-product pest. Early studies on O. surinamensis in the 1930s described the presence of peculiar bacteriomes harboring endosymbiotic bacteria in the abdomen. Since then, however, the microbiological nature of the symbiont has been elusive. Here we investigated the endosymbiotic system of O. surinamensis in detail. In the abdomen of adults, pupae, and larvae, four oval bacteriomes were consistently identified, whose cytoplasm was full of extremely elongated tubular bacterial cells several micrometers wide and several hundred micrometers long. Molecular phylogenetic analysis identified the symbiont as a member of the Bacteroidetes, in which the symbiont was the most closely related to the endosymbiont of a grain pest beetle, Rhyzopertha dominica (Bostrichidae). The symbiont was detected in developing embryos, corroborating vertical symbiont transmission through host generations. The symbiont gene showed AT-biased nucleotide composition and accelerated molecular evolution, plausibly reflecting degenerative evolution of the symbiont genome. When the symbiont infection was experimentally removed, the aposymbiotic insects grew and reproduced normally, but exhibited a slightly but significantly more reddish cuticle and lighter body mass. These results indicate that the symbiont of O. surinamensis is not essential for the host's growth and reproduction but contributes to the host's cuticle formation. Symbiont genome sequencing and detailed comparison of fitness parameters between symbiotic and aposymbiotic insects under various environmental conditions will provide further insights into the symbiont's biological roles for the stored-product pest.IMPORTANCE Some beetles notorious as stored-product pests possess well-developed symbiotic organs called bacteriomes for harboring specific symbiotic bacteria, although their biological roles have been poorly understood. Here we report a peculiar endosymbiotic system of a grain pest beetle, Oryzaephilus surinamensis, in which four oval bacteriomes in the abdomen are full of extremely elongated tubular bacterial cells. Experimental symbiont elimination did not hinder the host's growth and reproduction, but resulted in emergence of reddish beetles, uncovering the symbiont's involvement in host's cuticle formation. We speculate that the extremely elongated symbiont cell morphology might be due to the degenerative symbiont genome deficient in bacterial cell division and/or cell wall formation, which highlights an evolutionary consequence of intimate host-symbiont coevolution.

Delivering Beauveria bassiana with electrostatic powder for the control of stored-product beetles.

BACKGROUND: The efficacy of a Beauveria bassiana-based formulation (Bb38) with Entostat, an electrostatically charged powder, was investigated as a surface treatment against Cryptolestes ferrugineus, Oryzaephilus surinamensis and Sitophilus granarius adults. In lab bioassays, the efficacy of Bb38 against the aforementioned species was examined on concrete, plywood, steel and ceramic, whereas its residual efficacy against the same species was assessed on concrete and steel in the presence or absence of illumination. Finally, the efficacy of Bb38 against O. surinamensis and S. granarius adults was assessed in a commercial grain storage facility under realistic field conditions. RESULTS: In the lab trials, O. surinamensis and C. ferrugineus were much more susceptible to Bb38 than S. granarius on all types of surfaces. Moreover, Bb38 was, at least for O. surinamensis and C. ferrugineus, as effective as the chemical standard (deltamethrin) for at least 2 months after the application, regardless of the presence or absence of illumination. Finally, in the field trial Bb38 provided a satisfactory level of control against O. surinamensis. CONCLUSION: Bb38 is an effective surface treatment, but its efficacy varies according to the target species, the type of surface and the time post-application. This is the first published report that examines the efficacy of Bb38 as a surface treatment for wider uses in empty warehouses and related storage facilities. © 2017 Society of Chemical Industry.

Reproductive efficiency of the bethylid wasp Cephalonomia tarsalis: the influences of spatial structure and host density.

The parasitoid wasp Cephalonomia tarsalis (Ashmead) (Hymenoptera: Bethylidae) is commonly present in stored product facilities. While beneficial, it does not provide a high degree of biological pest control against its host, the saw-toothed beetle Oryzaephilus surinamensis (L.) (Coleoptera: Silvanidae). A candidate explanation for poor host population suppression is that adult females interfere with each other's foraging and reproductive behavior. We used simple laboratory microcosms to evaluate such mutual interference in terms of its overall effects on offspring production. We varied the density of the hosts and also the spatial structure of the environment, via the extent of population sub-division and the provision of different substrates. Production of C. tarsalis offspring was positively influenced by host density and by the isolation of females. With incomplete sub-division within microcosms offspring production was, in contrast, low and even zero. The provision of corrugated paper as a substrate enhanced offspring production and partially mitigated the effects of mutual interference. We recommend simple improvements to mass rearing practice and identify promising areas for further behavioral and chemical studies towards a better understanding of the mechanisms of mutual interference.

Long-Term Residual Efficacy of Spinetoram on Concrete and Steel Surfaces for the Management of Three Stored Product Beetle Species.

In this study, the residual efficacy of spinetoram on concrete and galvanized steel surfaces was evaluated under fixed laboratory conditions against the rice weevil, Sitophilus oryzae (L.), the confused flour beetle, Tribolium confusum Jacquelin du Val, and the sawtoothed grain beetle, Oryzaephilus surinamensis (L.). Spinetoram was applied at the dose rates of 0.025 and 0.1 mg (active ingredient)/cm(2), on steel surfaces that were stored in continuous darkness and on concrete surfaces that were stored either in continuous darkness or in 12:12 (L:D) photoperiod. The experimental period for the residual effect of spinetoram was 6 mo. Bioassays were conducted for all types of surfaces and storage conditions at monthly intervals starting from the initial application period (seven bioassays in total). For each bioassay, mortality of the exposed adult beetles was measured after 3 and 7 d of exposure. Among the tested species, T. confusum was the least susceptible, regardless of the surface type, storage conditions, and dose rate. Regarding the bioassays conducted in the surfaces stored in darkness, spinetoram proved very persistent and no reduction in the efficacy was noted throughout the experimental period. Moreover, there were no differences in spinetoram efficacy between the two types of surfaces. Conversely, in light [12:12 (L:D)] conditions spinetoram efficacy was notably reduced after the first month, but remained stable for the rest of the period. The results of this study indicate that spinetoram was persistent with long residual efficacy against major stored grain beetle species on the most common types of surfaces in continuous darkness, while the presence of light reduced its efficacy.

Spread of phosphine resistance among brazilian populations of three species of stored product insects

The resistance to fumigant insecticides in stored-products insects is often recorded. Several factors influence the evolution of insecticide resistance. Among these, the frequency of applications and the migration of resistant populations are of primary importance for the stored-product insects. The aim of this study was to characterize the spectrum and investigate the status of phosphine resistance in Brazil, in 13 populations of the Coleoptera Tribolium castaneum Herbst (Tenebrionidae), ten populations of Rhyzopertha dominica (Fabr.) (Bostrichidae), and eight populations of Oryzaephilus surinamensis (L.) (Silvanidae). The pattern of resistance dispersion in the populations of these species was also verified. The bioassays for the detection of phosphine resistance followed the FAO standard method. To test the influence of migration in the evolution of the phosphine resistance, the difference of mortality in the discriminating concentration and the geographical distance among each pair wise combination of collection sites were correlated. None of the populations exhibited mortality above 90 percent in the discriminating concentration, for the three species. Mortality in the discriminating concentration increased with the geographical distance for R.dominica and O.surinamensis. However, no significant linear response was observed among the variables for T.castaneum populations. These results suggest that the dispersion of insects and the local selection are relevant in the evolution of the phosphine resistance in populations of R.dominica and O.surinamensis. In contrast, grain trade and local selection are probably the factors that determine the evolution of the phosphine resistance in populations of T. castaneum.