Live Insects Research Articles

Insects as Feed for Farmed Poultry: Are Italian Consumers Ready to Embrace This Innovation?

Simple SummaryResearch into alternative protein sources might help to reduce environmental pollution and increase animal welfare. Insect proteins used in feed production could represent a good solution for these environmental and ethical problems. However, consumer acceptance of insects as feed must be carefully considered, along with the role of information in affecting the acceptance of such feed. In this study, we tested how non-technical information on the benefits of introducing insects as feed for farmed animals convinced a group of Italian consumers to accept duck meat fed either with insect-based meal or live insects. We found that providing information on the environmental, safety, nutritional, and taste-related aspects of insect-based feed as a protein substitute in the poultry sector increased the consumers’ acceptance of using insects as feed, as well as their readiness to purchase and consume these products. Our results show that some sociodemographic attributes, i.e., gender, age, and education level, are significantly related with the acceptance of products from insect-fed animals. The inclusion of insects as a protein source in feed production is not only related to technical, economical, and normative restrictions but is also affected by consumer acceptance. In this study, we evaluated consumers’ attitudes, intention to purchase and eat, and willingness to pay for meat obtained from a farmed duck fed with insect-based meal or a live insect diet. We conducted a survey among a sample of 565 consumers to test the effects of information about the benefits of using insects as feed on consumers’ attitudes towards animal-based products fed with insects. Providing information on the sustainability and nutritional benefits of using insects as feed increased both attitude towards and intention to purchase and eat meat products made from animals fed with insects. In the treatment group, we found a significant reduction from 21.9 to 14.0% in those who wanted to be compensated for buying a duck fed with an insect-based meal and an increase in those willing to pay the same price—from 64.9 to 72.7%. The information treatment significantly increased the intention to eat such products, suggesting that increasing consumers’ knowledge might help in reducing the fears and misconceptions around the topic of using insects as a feed source.

Evaluating of hermetic bags for long-term storage of turmeric (Curcuma longa L.) rhizomes

Hermetical and traditional storage bags were evaluated for their effect on the postharvest storage of turmeric at laboratory conditions. The traditional Polypropylene (PP) woven bags and the jute bags were compared with Purdue Improved Crop Storage (PICS), Super Grainpro, Savegrain bags, and Ecotect bags. Every month, for eleven months, the levels of oxygen and carbon dioxide, moisture, insect damage, live insect count, weight loss of turmeric rhizomes were monitored. A slight change in moisture was observed for turmeric stored in PICS, Grainpro, Savegrain, and Ecotect bags. But, a significant decrease in moisture was observed for turmeric stored in jute bags. The levels of oxygen in PICS and Ecotect bags decreased from 20% to 8% while carbon dioxide content increased in PICS bags from 0.2% to 12% during the period of storage. In jute bags, the level of oxygen was approximately 19.3% but the level of carbon dioxide increased from 0.05% to 0.43% due to insect activity. In all hermetic bags, the risk of insects has decreased over time, and weight loss has also decreased as compared with jute bags. In Polypropylene woven and jute bags, damage by insects and weight loss increased during storage while the curcumin content reduced. Our study showed the effectiveness of PICS, Grainpro, Savegrain, and Ecotec bags in controlling insects and weightloss in turmeric rhizomes over the traditional bags. All the four hermetic bags performed well in long-term storage of turmeric rhizome and can be recommended.

Susceptibility of Brazilian Populations of Anastrepha fraterculus, Ceratitis capitata (Diptera: Tephritidae), and Drosophila suzukii (Diptera: Drosophilidae) to Selected Insecticides.

Anastrepha fraterculus (Wiedemann), Ceratitis capitata (Wiedemann), and Drosophila suzukii (Matsumura) are the main fruit pests in Brazil. Here, we evaluated the susceptibility of Brazilian populations of A. fraterculus, C. capitata, and D. suzukii to selected insecticides. In ingestion bioassays, adults from a laboratory susceptible population of each species were exposed to five different modes of action of insecticide. Then, field populations of each species were exposed to the diagnostic concentrations to evaluate possible changes in susceptibility. Our findings indicate that lambda-cyhalothrin, malathion, and spinosad had similar levels of toxicity against a susceptible laboratory population of A. fraterculus, with LC50 values of 6.34, 6.54, and 8.76 µg a.i./ml, respectively. Ceratitis capitata had similar susceptibilities to spinosad (1.30 µg a.i./ml), spinetoram (2.76 µg a.i./ml), and malathion (7.10 µg a.i./ml), but a lower susceptibility to lambda-cyhalothrin (76.55 µg a.i./ml). For D. suzukii, the LC50 values of deltamethrin (0.67 µg a.i./ml), malathion (3.30 µg a.i./mL), spinosad (4.16 µg a.i./ml), and spinetoram (4.75 µg a.i./ml) were lower than for abamectin (15.02 µg a.i./ml), acetamiprid (39.38 a.i./ml), and thiamethoxam (70.15 µg a.i./ml). The diagnostic concentrations, based on LC99 values of the insecticides, caused more than 99% mortality for most field populations of each species. For lambda-cyhalothrin the populations RS-1 (A. fraterculus) and SC (C. capitata) showed approximately 10% of live insects. These differences represent the natural variation in population susceptibility and not due to insecticide selection pressure. The diagnostic concentrations defined here should be used in future resistance monitoring programs in Brazil.

Pretrained Convolutional Neural Networks Perform Well in a Challenging Test Case: Identification of Plant Bugs (Hemiptera: Miridae) Using a Small Number of Training Images

Abstract Automated insect identification systems have been explored for more than two decades but have only recently started to take advantage of powerful and versatile convolutional neural networks (CNNs). While typical CNN applications still require large training image datasets with hundreds of images per taxon, pretrained CNNs recently have been shown to be highly accurate, while being trained on much smaller datasets. We here evaluate the performance of CNN-based machine learning approaches in identifying three curated species-level dorsal habitus datasets for Miridae, the plant bugs. Miridae are of economic importance, but species-level identifications are challenging and typically rely on information other than dorsal habitus (e.g., host plants, locality, genitalic structures). Each dataset contained 2–6 species and 126–246 images in total, with a mean of only 32 images per species for the most difficult dataset. We find that closely related species of plant bugs can be identified with 80–90% accuracy based on their dorsal habitus alone. The pretrained CNN performed 10–20% better than a taxon expert who had access to the same dorsal habitus images. We find that feature extraction protocols (selection and combination of blocks of CNN layers) impact identification accuracy much more than the classifying mechanism (support vector machine and deep neural network classifiers). While our network has much lower accuracy on photographs of live insects (62%), overall results confirm that a pretrained CNN can be straightforwardly adapted to collection-based images for a new taxonomic group and successfully extract relevant features to classify insect species.

Using µCT in live larvae of a large wood-boring beetle to study tracheal oxygen supply during development

How respiratory structures vary with, or are constrained by, an animal’s environment is of central importance to diverse evolutionary and comparative physiology hypotheses. To date, quantifying insect respiratory structures and their variation has remained challenging due to their microscopic size, hence only a handful of species have been examined. Several methods for imaging insect respiratory systems are available, in many cases however, the analytical process is lethal, destructive, time consuming and labour intensive. Here, we explore and test a different approach to measuring tracheal volume using X-ray micro-tomography (µCT) scanning (at 15 µm resolution) on living, sedated larvae of the cerambycid beetle Cacosceles newmannii across a range of body sizes at two points in development. We provide novel data on resistance of the larvae to the radiation dose absorbed during µCT scanning, repeatability of imaging analyses both within and between time-points and, structural tracheal trait differences provided by different image segmentation methods. By comparing how tracheal dimension (reflecting metabolic supply) and basal metabolic rate (reflecting metabolic demand) increase with mass, we show that tracheal oxygen supply capacity increases during development at a comparable, or even higher rate than metabolic demand. Given that abundant gas delivery capacity in the insect respiratory system may be costly (due to e.g. oxygen toxicity or space restrictions), there are probably balancing factors requiring such a capacity that are not linked to direct tissue oxygen demand and that have not been thoroughly elucidated to date, including CO2 efflux. Our study provides methodological insights and novel biological data on key issues in rapidly quantifying insect respiratory anatomy on live insects.

A note on the current distribution of reedtail damselfly Protosticta rufostigma Kimmins, 1958 (Odonata: Zygoptera: Platystictidae) from Western Ghats, and its addition to the odonate checklist of Kerala

The genus Protosticta (Odonata, Zygoptera, Platystictidae) is represented by nine species in the Western Ghats of peninsular India, of which seven are reported for the state of Kerala. Our recent records of Protosticta rufostigma Kimmins, 1958 from the Western Ghats of Kerala State is discussed, and despite a thorough literature search no collection records or photographs of the species has been found after the original description from Tamil Nadu. The species is, thus, added to the checklist of odonates of Kerala State. The description of the live insect, its ecology, status and distribution is discussed.

An Automated Light Trap to Monitor Moths (Lepidoptera) Using Computer Vision-Based Tracking and Deep Learning.

Insect monitoring methods are typically very time-consuming and involve substantial investment in species identification following manual trapping in the field. Insect traps are often only serviced weekly, resulting in low temporal resolution of the monitoring data, which hampers the ecological interpretation. This paper presents a portable computer vision system capable of attracting and detecting live insects. More specifically, the paper proposes detection and classification of species by recording images of live individuals attracted to a light trap. An Automated Moth Trap (AMT) with multiple light sources and a camera was designed to attract and monitor live insects during twilight and night hours. A computer vision algorithm referred to as Moth Classification and Counting (MCC), based on deep learning analysis of the captured images, tracked and counted the number of insects and identified moth species. Observations over 48 nights resulted in the capture of more than 250,000 images with an average of 5675 images per night. A customized convolutional neural network was trained on 2000 labeled images of live moths represented by eight different classes, achieving a high validation -score of 0.93. The algorithm measured an average classification and tracking -score of 0.71 and a tracking detection rate of 0.79. Overall, the proposed computer vision system and algorithm showed promising results as a low-cost solution for non-destructive and automatic monitoring of moths.

Hermetic Storage of Shelled Peanut Using the Purdue Improved Crop Storage Bags1

ABSTRACT Low oxygen or hermetic storage has been successfully used to store several commodities such as corn (Zea mays L.), cowpea (Vigna Savi), cocoa (Theobroma cocao), coffee (Coffea L.), and rice (Oryza sativa L.). However, previous research using hermetic storage for peanut or groundnut (Arachis hypogaea L.) had mixed results. Research was conducted to determine the effect on aflatoxin contamination, seed germination, and oil chemistry of shelled peanut hermetically stored in the Purdue Improved Crop Storage (PICS) bags for up to 12 months. A 2 × 4 factorial study included 1) normal and high oleic peanut, 2) two initial moisture contents by four storage treatments. The four storage treatments were 1) burlap bags as the control, 2) PICS bags, 3) PICS bags with air extracted by vacuum, and 4) PICS bags with sachets of chlorine dioxide (ClO2) dry fumigant added. There were three replications of each treatment combination. Peanut was stored in an area maintained at a temperature above 21C. The initial seed germination of the normal oleic and high oleic peanuts was 77 and 80%, respectively. Initial aflatoxin concentration in all peanut was less than 2 μg/kg. Bags were opened, sampled, and resealed at 60, 159, 249, and 301 d of storage. Approximately half of the 12 burlap bags suffered significant rodent damage, and all had significant infestation by Indian meal moth (Plodia interpunctella). Only 4 PICS bags had rodent damage with damage limited to the outer polypropylene bag. There were no live insects in the PICS bags. Seed germination decreased for all samples to an average of 6.3%. Peanut stored in the burlap bags had an average germination of 19.2% compared to 2.1% for peanut stored in PICS bags. The aflatoxin concentration in one of the burlap bags with normal oleic peanuts was 75 μg/kg, and one of the PICS bags with high oleic peanuts had an aflatoxin concentration of 12 μg/kg. The remaining samples had aflatoxin below the detectable limit of 2 μg/kg.

Обзор методик зоокультуры редких и исчезающих земноводных России и сопредельных стран: опыт Тимирязевской академии

This article discusses the problems of rare amphibian zooculture, artificial reproduction over several generations. Amphibians have been bred in Russia for at least 150 years, but only a small number of species have become widely distributed in captivity. However, to date, the offspring of most amphibians included in the Red Data Book of the Russian Federation have been obtained under laboratory conditions, and since 2008, the Timiryazev Academy (Russian State Agrarian University – Moscow Timiryazev Agricultural Academy) has been working on the introduction of five species into the culture (Lissotriton lantzi, Ommatotriton ophryticus, Triturus karelinii, Bufo verrucosissimus и Epidalea calamita). Two-to-four generations of these species were obtained under artificial conditions and work was carried out to identify optimal content densities, temperature conditions, photoperiod, and diet. This enabled technology of laboratory reproduction to be developed. This review presents some original methods for housing, feeding, and breeding these species. We believe that the main obstacle for implementation to the zooculture of rare amphibian species in Russia and neighboring countries is the shortage of live food insects; this drawback does not allow us to create sufficiently large and genetically diverse groups of amphibians. One promising area of research is the search for new feed objects that have high nutritional value, simplicity, and low cost of cultivation as well as a high rate of biomass growth.

Contribution of sample processing to gut microbiome analysis in the model Lepidoptera, silkworm Bombyx mori

Microbes that live inside insects play various roles in host biology, ranging from nutrient supplementation to host defense. Although Lepidoptera (butterflies and moths) are one of the most diverse insect taxa and important in natural ecosystems, their microbiotas are little-studied, and to understand their structure and function, it is necessary to identify potential factors that affect microbiome analysis. Using a model organism, the silkworm Bombyx mori, we investigated the effects of different sample types (whole gut, gut content, gut tissue, starvation, or frass) and metagenomic DNA extraction methodologies (small-scale versus large-scale) on the composition and diversity of the caterpillar gut microbial communities. High-throughput 16S rRNA gene sequencing and computational analysis of the resulting data unraveled that DNA extraction has a large effect on the outcome of metagenomic analysis: significant biases were observed in estimates of community diversity and in the ratio between Gram-positive and Gram-negative bacteria. Furthermore, bacterial communities differed significantly among sample types. The gut content and whole gut samples differed least, both had a higher percentage of Enterococcus and Acinetobacter species; whereas the frass and starvation samples differed substantially from the whole gut and were poor representatives of the gut microbiome. Thus, we recommend a small-scale DNA extraction methodology for sampling the whole gut under normal insect rearing conditions whenever possible, as this approach provides the most accurate assessment of the gut microbiome. Our study highlights that evaluation of the optimal sample-processing approach should be the first step taken to confidently assess the contributions of microbiota to Lepidoptera.

Gall traits and galling insect survival in a multi-enemy context

Introduction: The enemy hypothesis postulates that gall traits protect galling insects against natural enemies. Galls show a huge range of sizes, colors and ornaments, which vary even intraspecifically. However, galling insects are targets of various organisms that attack them directly or indirectly. In this context, to consider only one gall trait to investigate gall structure acting against only one guild of enemies can conceal an understanding of the community-level interactions. Objective: Herein, we take these ideas into consideration to investigate the conspicuous galls induced by Palaeomystella oligophaga Becker and Adamski 2008 (Lepidoptera) on Macairea radula (Bonpl.) (Melastomataceae) as a model system. We characterize this system through categorization of the different enemy guilds present in the community. We identified them to the lowest taxonomic level possible and determined the kind of interaction responsible for galling insects’ deaths. Considering the enemy hypothesis and the selection of secondary characteristics, we also aimed to determine which of the multiple gall traits influence the survival success of galling insects in a multi-enemy context. Methods: We inspected galls and characterized the enemy guilds affecting the galling insect and the mortality rates produced by each one of them. Next, we tested whether the distinct gall traits measured (parenchyma thickness, color, projections) promote galling insect survival with respect to each enemy. Results: The mortality induced by indirect enemies (organisms that interact with gall tissues and can interact secondarily with galling insect) was 47.3 %, being higher than that caused by parasitoids and predators (31.5 %). Despite the gall’s structural complexity, live galling insects showed the smallest occurrence (21.2 %). Parenchyma thickness was negatively related to Calliephialtes parasitoids, Gelechiidae cecidophages and predation signals. Conclusions: We demonstrated that the attacks to gall tissues by the cecidophages represented the highest threat to P. oligophaga survival, being higher than the mortality caused by direct enemies. That is, the gall traits were not as efficient as supposed to protect the galling insect from the attack of natural enemies. Nevertheless, we also demonstrated that parenchyma thickness can be negatively related to some organisms, especially direct enemies. Other traits hypothesized as defensive (e.g. projections, coloration) may simply play no role.

Potentiality of Fractionated Extracts from Hemizygia welwitschii Rolfe-Ashby (Lamiaceae) Leaf to Protect Maize against Sitophilus zeamais Motschulsky (Coleoptera: Curculionidae) in Storage

Laboratory tests were conducted in order to assess the potential insecticidal effect of hexane, acetone and methanol fractionated extracts from Hemizygia welwitschii leaves against Sitophilus zeamais Motschulsky, important stored maize pest. The three extracts used individually were applied at four different concentrations (2, 4, 6 and 10 g/kg of maize) against the weevil. The efficacy of the treatment was evaluated by recording adult mortality after 1, 3, 7 and 14 days of infestation, and the F1 progeny emergence. Population increase, grain damage, and seeds germination were also assessed after three months of storage. The results showed that, among the three fractionated extracts, hexane extract was the most effective with 100% mortality recorded within 14 days after infestation at the concentration of 10 g/kg of maize, followed by acetone extract with 83.75% and methanol extract with 79.21% of mortality. The LC50 values decrease with the increase of exposure periods. The 14-day LC50 values were 0.78 g/kg, 1.58 g/kg and 3.10 g/kg respectively for hexane, acetone and methanol extract. The three extracts achieved significant inhibition of F1 progeny at all the concentrations. Among them, the hexane and methanol extracts induced complete inhibition of F1 progeny emergence at 10 g/kg of maize, acetone extract recorded 82.33% of inhibition. Significant reductions of insect population growth and percentage of seed damage were recorded after three months of storage on the maize treated with each extract at all the concentrations compared to negative control. Furthermore, no alive insects was recorded in maize seeds treated with the three extracts at the concentration of 10 g/kg. It is noticed that, percentage of gain damage were similar (0.15%) in maize treated with hexane and methanol extracts at 10 g/kg, while acetone extract recorded 0.76% of grain damage. In general, these extracts had no negative effect on the germination capacity of maize grains at the end of storage. Overall, the results obtained indicate that the use of these fractionated extracts could serve as an alternative to synthetic insecticides.

PENERAPAN METODE SMART DALAM PEMILIHAN BIJI KOPI TERBAIK

We can easily find coffee sellers today, both online and offline. Buying coffee in the form of beans will provide several benefits, such as a more durable aroma and usually of a higher quality. But unfortunately, now there are still many coffee buyers who don't know how to choose coffee beans with good quality. Therefore we need a system that can produce recommendations for selecting the best coffee beans based on determined criteria. This study uses the Decision Support System concept using the SMART method. The SMART method is a decision-making method to solve the problem of multi-objective choice among several criteria, so that later it can produce an effective and efficient analysis. Input criteria that become priority in the recommendation for selecting the best coffee beans are live insects (none requirements), foul smelling beans (non-existent requirements), moisture content, non-coffee dung content, defect values, and flavor (aroma). Of the 10 alternatives tested on this system, there were 5 types of coffee with a “Highly Recommended” rating, 2 types of coffee with a “Recommended” rating, and 3 types of coffee with a “Considered” rating

The Role of Fumonisins in the Biological Interaction between Fusarium verticillioides and Sitophilus zeamais.

The aim of the current study was to investigate the entomopathogenic capacity of the mold Fusarium verticillioides and the effect of its mycotoxins fumonisins, on the grain beetle Sitophilus zeamais. We evaluated the capacity of this fungus to infect live insects, the antifungal activity of constituents of the insect's epicuticle, and the effect of a fumonisin extract on the fitness of the insects. We found that F. verticillioides could not penetrate the cuticle of S. zeamais and that the fumonisin extract had no negative effects on the fitness of the insects. However, the progeny of the insects increased, and the fumonisin extract had repellent effects. This is the first report about the effects of fumonisins on the relationship between F. verticillioides and S. zeamais, which may provide useful information about interactions between pathogenic microorganisms and insects, especially on stored product pests.

Verification of atmospheric plasma irradiation as an alternative control method for Tribolium castaneum (Herbst).

Radio frequency plasma, RF plasma, has been applied to a number of industrial applications. Laboratory experiments were conducted to determine the RF plasma potential in Tribolium castaneum (Herbst) control. Three treatment variables: (1) helium or argon plasmas; (2) two power levels (50 and 100 watt); and (3) different RF plasma exposure times (0, 20, 40, 60 and 90 seconds) were examined in this study. The susceptibility of T. castaneum to treatment varies as gas, power level, and the exposure time varies. A positive correlation was found between insect mortality percent in treating larvae as well as treated pupae and exposure time to RF plasma and also the power level of irradiation. The results revealed that no live insects were found after a 90 second, 100 watt helium RF plasma treatment. The survival percents of the adults were developed from treated larvae and treated pupae were significantly reduced by increasing of the exposure time or power level. Obtained data indicated that the treatment with RF plasma might be considered as an environmentally compatible or alternative supplement to the other control methods for stored product-pests management.

Impact of hermetic packaging on green gram (Vigna radiata) insect and microbial damage under environmental storage condition

Green gram (Vigna radiata) is an important income generation crop for millions of farmers and processing units in India. In most developing countries, the post-harvest losses associated with this crop remain a major concern. This case investigates the impact of hermetic and non-hermetic packaging material on the green gram in tropical ambient storage. The green gram was held for 180 days in hermetic bags, plastic containers, and jute bags. Calculated parameters were the amount of moisture, the infestation of insects, the weight of 1,000 seeds, and the microbial load. In hermetic bags, the moisture content decreased a little, from 13.37 to 12.60% compared to the sharp decline in the non-hermetic plastic containers and jute bags of 13.70 to 11.90% and 13.70 to 8.30%, respectively. The insect population drastically reduced in the hermetic bags 30 days onwards and reached to zero by 60 days of storage. In this study, non-hermetic plastic containers and jute bags, the population of live insects increased 30 days onwards. The weight of 1000 grains in jute bags decreased significantly from 64.50 g to 56.11 g, while the hermetically stored kernels decreased to just 63.75 g. In non-hermetic plastic containers were significantly superior over other treatments with the least bacterial count (1.55 x 106cfu/gm) followed by hermetic bags (1.65x 106 CFU/gm) and jute bags. Based on our findings, the hermetic bag is better packaging material as far as spoilage due to insects and fungi is concerned that is followed by a plastic container and jute bag. At the same time, the jute bag was having the highest bacterial load followed by a hermetic bag and plastic container. It was thus concluded that hermetic storage could be a better way than non-hermetic storage to store green gram.

Wireless steerable vision for live insects and insect-scale robots.

Vision serves as an essential sensory input for insects but consumes substantial energy resources. The cost to support sensitive photoreceptors has led many insects to develop high visual acuity in only small retinal regions and evolve to move their visual systems independent of their bodies through head motion. By understanding the trade-offs made by insect vision systems in nature, we can design better vision systems for insect-scale robotics in a way that balances energy, computation, and mass. Here, we report a fully wireless, power-autonomous, mechanically steerable vision system that imitates head motion in a form factor small enough to mount on the back of a live beetle or a similarly sized terrestrial robot. Our electronics and actuator weigh 248 milligrams and can steer the camera over 60° based on commands from a smartphone. The camera streams "first person" 160 pixels-by-120 pixels monochrome video at 1 to 5 frames per second (fps) to a Bluetooth radio from up to 120 meters away. We mounted this vision system on two species of freely walking live beetles, demonstrating that triggering image capture using an onboard accelerometer achieves operational times of up to 6 hours with a 10-milliamp hour battery. We also built a small, terrestrial robot (1.6 centimeters by 2 centimeters) that can move at up to 3.5 centimeters per second, support vision, and operate for 63 to 260 minutes. Our results demonstrate that steerable vision can enable object tracking and wide-angle views for 26 to 84 times lower energy than moving the whole robot.

Towards modernizing the taxonomy of Mediterranean Culicoides using classical morphology, mtDNA barcoding, and MALDI-TOF MS protein profiling

Culicoides biting midges (Diptera: Ceratopogonidae) are a highly successful group of small (1–3 mm) hematophagous flies, infamous for the role they play as biological vectors for numerous pathogens of veterinary significance. The principal aim of the national animal disease surveillance program of Israel is to be able to rapidly sort and identify live field-captured insects including Culicoides for arbovirus screening. In this exploratory study, three identification methods—classical morphology, DNA barcoding, and MALDI-TOF MS—were applied simultaneously to individuals of 10 Culicoides species that commonly attack livestock in Israel. The strengths and limitations of the three methods are compared and evaluated. In essence, the CO1 barcoding and MALDI-TOF MS results closely matched those of classical morphology. Furthermore, at a higher level and in strong accordance with recognized subgenera, the 10 species, in the reconstructed phylogenies, coalesced into multiple deeper-branched monophyletic clades. However, some discrepancies between the molecular and protein profiling results did occur and proved difficult to assess in terms of taxonomic significance. This difficulty underscores how tricky it is to establish clear species limits when methods involving borderline cutoff values and similarity indices are used as a taxonomic aid. An added shortcoming of the pluralistic triple-method approach is that a significant percentage of the species-level depositions in the GenBank and BOLD databases are misidentified, hindering structured comparison and interpretation of the morphological and molecular results obtained. Aspects of the unresolved taxonomy of various biting midge assemblages within the Mediterranean basin, including minor changes to the Israeli Culicoides checklist, are discussed in light of the methods applied. It is observed that the direct access that classical morphology provides to the external environment (or species niche) is indispensable to the full and correct interpretation (and application) of concomitant molecular and protein profiling results. The Culicoides taxonomy of the future ought to be fully integrative, during which the assimilation of modern methodological advances should strengthen—rather than undermine—the morphological foundations laid down during the 260-year Linnaean epoch.

Hermetic sealed storage IRRI super bag: Reduces post-harvest losses in seed grains

Post-harvest losses occur due to poor storage system, which deteriorates seed quality. All traditional storage systems like jute bags, PVC/woven bags, clay pots, drums etc. are not really hermetic and can’t store seed or grain safely for longer time. It would be difficult to measure the loss due to physiological changes in seed at the farm level. An attempt was, therefore, made to control the insect-damage, maintain germination and proper moisture level in IRRI Super bags at farmer’s level. Visualising this, the on-farm study at BAU, KVK Sabour, Bhagalpur and ICAR, KVK Buxar was conducted during 2015-16. Lentil seeds used for research in KVKs were initially dried to moisture content ranging from 12.1 to 13.9% and cooled in shade before storage. There was merely 0-1% increase in moisture-content after storage in Super bags, whereas it increased by 1.6-2.0% in jute bags which attracted more insect-pest infestation and reduced germination. There was no or negligible count of dead or alive insect-pests infesting Super-bag stored seed, while noticeable count of dead and live insects was recorded into grains. Seed germination ability remained unaffected in Super bags, but it drastically deteriorated (8.5-10.9%) in jute-bag stored seed at different locations. Discolouration of seed stored in Super bag was also lesser as compared to that stored in jute bag. It implies that IRRI Super bags are suitable for lentil seed storage in room condition. Though the cost of Super bag is a bit higher than jute bag, but its benefits well-nigh compensate the cost.

Flexible Spiking CPGs for Online Manipulation During Hexapod Walking.

Neural signals for locomotion are influenced both by the neural network architecture and sensory inputs coordinating and adapting the gait to the environment. Adaptation relies on the ability to change amplitude, frequency, and phase of the signals within the sensorimotor loop in response to external stimuli. However, in order to experiment with closed-loop control, we first need a better understanding of the dynamics of the system and how adaptation works. Based on insights from biology, we developed a spiking neural network capable of continuously changing amplitude, frequency, and phase online. The resulting network is deployed on a hexapod robot in order to observe the walking behavior. The morphology and parameters of the network results in a tripod gait, demonstrating that a design without afferent feedback is sufficient to maintain a stable gait. This is comparable to results from biology showing that deafferented samples exhibit a tripod-like gait and adds to the evidence for a meaningful role of network topology in locomotion. Further, this work enables research into the role of sensory feedback and high-level control signals in the adaptation of gait types. A better understanding of the neural control of locomotion relates back to biology where it can provide evidence for theories that are currently not testable on live insects.