Production, Application, and Environmental Considerations of Nano Pesticides

This review summarizes the current knowledge on the distribution, natural history, economic importance and management of 16 major species of date palm pests in Israel. Another 15, rarely occurring, pest species are also identified. Research on the date palm pests in Israel was initiated against a background of severe outbreaks of scale insects in the late 1950s. These outbreaks were caused mainly by unrestrained use of organophosphates. This situation led to the gradual development of an Integrated Pest Management (IPM) program, which was implemented first against scale insects and later against fruit pests. The IMP approach resulted in successful control of the scale insects, up to the present, whereas agrotechnical and crop management procedures, including covering the fruit bunches with plastic nets and early harvesting of several date cultivars, were successfully applied to achieve efficient control of the fruit moths. In addition, the use of chemical compounds in date plantations was drastically reduced and restricted to heavy foci of pest infestation. In time, microbial control, mainly application ofBacillus thuringiensis products against the lesser date moth, and the use of pheromone traps for monitoring and controlling red palm weevil, enabled further reductions in the use of synthetic insecticides. The overall change in pest management also significantly improved the preservation of natural enemies of the pests in the plantations. Whereas in the 1950s the major problems were caused by the parlatoria date scale and the green scale, in the early 2000s the key pests in date plantations in Israel are the lesser date moth and sap beetles in most of the date-growing areas, and spider mites which are restricted to the Arava Valley. Future management of the first two of these pests should rely on an improved monitoring system and integration of pheromone application for reduction of the population and damage. Efforst should be made to prevent the red palm weevil, which currently is a potential pest, from becoming an actual key pest in date plantations.

The peritrophic matrix is a chitin-protein structure that envelops the food bolus in the midgut of the majority of insects, but is absent in some groups which have, instead, an unusual extra-cellular lipoprotein membrane named the perimicrovillar membrane. The presence of the perimicrovillar membrane (PMM) allows these insects to exploit restricted ecological niches during all life stages. It is found only in some members of the superorder Paraneoptera and many of these species are of medical and economic importance. In this review we present an overview of the midgut and the digestive system of insects with an emphasis on the order Paraneoptera and differences found across phylogenetic groups. We discuss the importance of the PMM in Hemiptera and the apparent conservation of this structure among hemipteran groups, suggesting that the basic mechanism of PMM production is the same for different hemipteran species. We propose that the PMM is intimately involved in the interaction with parasites and as such should be a target for biological and chemical control of hemipteran insects of economic and medical importance.

Contents: Introduction – Synonymy – Distribution – Description – Life Cycle and Biology – Hosts – Medical Importance – Economic Importance – Management – Selected References. Also published on the Featured Creatures website at http://entnemdept.ufl.edu/Creatures/NEMATODE/Pseudoterranova_decipiens_sealworm_nematode.htm

Malaria, African trypanosomiasis, theileriosis, babesiosis and coccidiosis are of great public health and/or economic importance in eastern Africa. Leishmaniasis is an increasing problem in this area and other protozoal diseases which are found among human and/or livestock populations include toxoplasmosis, trichomoniasis, amoebiasis, giardiasis, sarcocystosis, Balantidium coli infection and histomoniasis.

Recently, there has been emphasis on the need to shift away from the use of synthetic chemical herbicides to low-risk alternatives derived from natural sources. This is aimed at lowering or averting the negative impact synthetic herbicides have on the environment and dealing with the emergence of weed species resistant to these chemicals. As a result, more stringent measures or outright bans on the use of most synthetic herbicides have been put in place by regulatory bodies. As seaweeds are abundant resources in the marine environment that have the capacity to produce diverse bioactive compounds, they could serve as sustainably viable, natural, and low-risk alternatives/sources to explore for potential phytotoxic capabilities. This could in turn help to enhance or boost the availability of effective solutions in the global bioherbicide market. This review highlights the prospects of using seaweeds as novel biopesticides for the control and management of various plant pests, including weed species, and for the development of sustainable agriculture/forestry practices. More specifically, it focuses on their use as a rich natural source for novel bioherbicide development, a potential that has remained underexplored for many years. However, to unlock the full potential of seaweed-derived bioherbicides and to create a potential path toward their development, increased research and development efforts are urgently needed to tackle and overcome possible constraints posed in this novel area, such as variability in seaweed chemical composition, formulation technologies, stability and efficacy of seaweed bioactive compounds, cost and scalability, and environmental considerations.

The importance of environmental considerations has been underscored due to the significant impact of plant pests on the ecosystem. This study leverages the IP102 dataset to evaluate the proposed TAME-RegNetY model, which integrates the Trainable Attention Mechanism for Enhancement with the RegNetY framework. The research focuses on identifying three prevalent pests, “Rice leafhopper,” “Beet spot flies,” and “Colomerus vitis.” Comparative analysis with ResNet-18, RegNetY, and SE-RegNet models demonstrates the superiority of TAME-RegNetY, achieving an overall accuracy of 94.12% and a kappa coefficient of 90.46%, marking a 5.12% improvement in accuracy. Furthermore, the findings support sustainable agriculture and forestry by improving pest monitoring and control, thereby maintaining their health. This approach highlights the potential of deep learning for intelligent pest management and sustainable environmental conservation. The model showcases the potential of advanced technologies to address complex ecological challenges while achieving superior accuracy in pest identification and classification.

Strengthening the BTWC: The role of the Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention in combating natural and deliberate disease outbreaks

The slugs of Britain and Ireland form a well-studied fauna of economic importance. They include many widespread European species that are introduced elsewhere (at least half of the 36 currently recorded British species are established in North America, for example). To test the contention that the British and Irish fauna consists of 36 species, and to verify the identity of each, a species delimitation study was conducted based on a geographically wide survey. Comparisons between mitochondrial DNA (COI, 16S), nuclear DNA (ITS-1) and morphology were investigated with reference to interspecific hybridisation. Species delimitation of the fauna produced a primary species hypothesis of 47 putative species. This was refined to a secondary species hypothesis of 44 species by integration with morphological and other data. Thirty six of these correspond to the known fauna (two species in Arion subgenus Carinarion were scarcely distinct and Arion (Mesarion) subfuscus consisted of two near-cryptic species). However, by the same criteria a further eight previously undetected species (22% of the fauna) are established in Britain and/or Ireland. Although overlooked, none are strictly morphologically cryptic, and some appear previously undescribed. Most of the additional species are probably accidentally introduced, and several are already widespread in Britain and Ireland (and thus perhaps elsewhere). At least three may be plant pests. Some evidence was found for interspecific hybridisation among the large Arion species (although not involving A. flagellus) and more unexpectedly in species pairs in Deroceras (Agriolimacidae) and Limacus (Limacidae). In the latter groups, introgression appears to have occurred in one direction only, with recently-invading lineages becoming common at the expense of long-established or native ones. The results show how even a well-studied, macroscopic fauna can be vulnerable to cryptic and undetected invasions and changes.

The availability and accessibility of suitably characterized plant virus and viroid isolates for reference is vital for research and diagnostic laboratories. To ensure the long‐term availability of isolates and reference materials, there is a need for international collaboration. The Euphresco (European Plant Health Research Coordination) project VirusCollect aimed to establish a platform to link collections of viruses and viroids maintained by individual institutions via Q‐bank (http://www.q-bank.eu/), a database on plant pests and diseases. Within the VirusCollect project, standard operating procedures were developed and implemented by the participating laboratories to guarantee the quality of isolates and data. In addition, over 135 virus and viroid isolates of phytosanitary and/or economic importance were added to Q‐bank, which now provides links to over 500 virus isolates of almost 100 species, in addition to basic information on many more plant viruses. VirusCollect has enabled the first step in collaboration between curators and standardization of maintenance of virus collections. The project established the basis for improving the quality of individual collections and the layout of Q‐bank as a platform to share data and information. The follow‐up project, VirusCollect II, enables further international collaboration to ensure future access to reliable collections of plant viruses and viroids.

The evolution of problematic plants, both weeds and invasives, is a topic of increasing interest. Plants that have evolved from domesticated ancestors have certain advantages for study. Because of their economic importance, domesticated plants are generally well-characterized and readily available for ecogenetic comparison with their wild descendants. Thus, the evolutionary history of crop descendants has the potential to be reconstructed in some detail. Furthermore, growing crop progenitors with their problematic descendants in a common environment allows for the identification of significant evolutionary differences that correlate with weediness or invasiveness. We sought well-established examples of invasives and weeds for which genetic and/or ethnobotanical evidence has confirmed their evolution from domesticates. We found surprisingly few cases, only 13. We examine our list for generalizations and then some selected cases to reveal how plant pests have evolved from domesticates. Despite their potential utility, crop descendants remain underexploited for evolutionary study. Promising evolutionary research opportunities for these systems are abundant and worthy of pursuit.

Several Australian and African Acacia shrubs and trees have been intentionally introduced into the Mediterranean basin for different purposes, but some species become invasive, such as Vachellia karroo (Hayne) Banfi and Galasso (syn. Acacia karroo) (Fabales: Fabaceae). The seed beetles, belonging to family Bruchidae, have a significant ecological and economic importance, either because they can be plant pests or, on the other hand, be used as biocontrol agents against invasive plant species. Bruchidius raddianae (Anton and Delobel, 2003) (Coleoptera: Bruchidae) is native to tropical and subtropical areas, but it has been recently reported from Cádiz and Málaga (southern Spain, 2007) and in the Lampedusa Island (Italy, 2015) from seeds of pods collected from V. karroo. This paper reports 104 specimens reared from seeds collected from V. karroo in Faro (southern Portugal) from August to October 2019, expanding the B. raddianae’ European distribution limits. This is also the first report of its presence in Portugal and the third in Europe.

We present the first comprehensive inventory of the mites of Pakistan, based on data from published books and papers. The fauna as presently understood includes 126 families, 316 genera, and 1105 species. The best-documented genera are those that include pests of stored food (for example Acotyledon, 28 species), plant pests (Brevipalpus, 49 species; Tenuipalpus, 35 species), and beneficial predators (Euseius, 44 species; Neoseiulus, 37 species; Phytoseius, 36 species; Typhlodromus, 47 species). Some economically important families such as the Eriophyidae are almost completely unknown. Some of the Cryptostigmata have been studied, but other groups of soil mites are very poorly known. Other large groups such as the feather mites, water mites, Uropodina, and parasitic Astigmata and Prostigmata, have not been studied in a systematic way. An increase in knowledge of these groups would help an assessment of their economic importance, and would make a valuable contribution to the biogeography of the western section of the Oriental Region and the southern section of the Palaearctic Region.

An integrated management program for pests of landscape plants was instituted to replace the traditional program of general cover sprays in three suburban Maryland communities. Control decisions were based on biological information gathered by scouts and on relevant economic and environmental considerations. During the 2 years the program operated, number of plants treated and overall cost of plant care declined dramatically compared with previous years. A survey of cooperating community managers confirmed that aesthetic quality of the landscape plants had not been compromised.

Specific scopeThis Standard describes a national regulatory control system for Globodera pallida and Globodera rostochiensis.

Patients with head and neck squamous cell carcinoma (HNSCC) usually have a history of tobacco and alcohol abuse. These 2 intoxications not only are main oncologic risk factors but also show a strong causal relationship with certain comorbid conditions. Examples are coronary artery disease, stroke, renal dysfunction, and heart failure, which are all proven major risk factors for an adverse postoperative outcome after stressful noncardiac surgery. Preoperative identification of these conditions could lead to preventive measures in patients with HNSCC that undergo extensive surgery. Preventing morbidity and mortality is of medical and economical importance. All comorbidity of 135 consecutive patients with HNSCC that underwent extensive oncologic and reconstructive surgery as the first form of treatment between 2001 and 2007 was investigated. Based on these data, a Lee Cardiac Risk Index (LCRI) Score and an overall Adult Comorbidity Evaluation (ACE-27) severity score were calculated. The predictive value of these scores and the American Society of Anesthesiologists' (ASA) classification toward major cardiovascular complication development were investigated. Major cardiovascular complications were defined as: cardiac death, nonfatal myocardial infarction, heart failure, and cardiac arrhythmias. The impact of these complications on duration of hospitalization, medical costs, and short-term mortality (defined as death within 6 months after primary tumor diagnosis) were investigated as well. The cardioprotective effect of preoperatively prescribed beta blockers and statins are discussed. Twenty-two patients developed 23 major cardiovascular complications (16.3%). In univariate and multivariate analyses, a higher LCRI score was associated with an increased risk for major cardiovascular complications, as was an age >70 years (all values of p < .01). The area under the receiver operating characteristics (ROC) curve (AUC) for the multivariate model was 0.84, indicating a good prognostic value. In univariate and multivariate analysis, a higher ACE-27 score was associated with an increased risk for major cardiovascular complications, as was as age >70 years (all values of p < .01). The AUC for this model was 0.84, indicating a performance similar to that of the LCRI score model. No statistically significant results were found for the ASA scores (p = .38). Preoperative beta-blocker use showed a significant cardioprotective function in univariate analysis, whereas statins did not. The mean duration of hospitalization was prolonged by 7 days in patients with a major cardiovascular complication. In economic terms, this means a cost increase of at least 3500 euros. None of the patients died during admission because of a major cardiovascular complication. The short-term mortality rate was 11.1%, but no specific cardiovascular cause of death was reported in these patients. Prevention of major complication occurrence after extensive HNSCC surgery is of medical and economic importance. Our results show that the ACE-27 and the LCRI are suitable instruments for preoperative major cardiovascular complication risk assessment. Addition of the variable age >70 years shows an improvement in predictive value of both instruments. Because of its simplicity we advise the implementation of the LCRI into preoperative HNSCC screening protocols. We advise the exploration of low-dose long-acting beta blockers as a preventive treatment strategy.