Abstract: Stingless bees (Apidae: Meliponini) provide pollination services to crops and produce high–quality honey. The application of agrochemicals during the management of crop pests is an increasing threat to pollina tors and the ecosystem services they provide. Biopesticides are considered as better alternatives; however, there is limited evidence of their impact on stingless bees. We evaluated the effect of the most widely used African fungal biopesticide (Metarhizium anisopliae ICIPE...
Abstract: Several biophysical factors are leading to the loss of biodiversity, among them the dominance of exotic invasive species on native communities is important. Their dominance can lead to changes in the structure of insect communities, by competing and displacing native species to other crops or habitats. These changes can impact the herbivore’s natural enemies in invaded areas by diverging them from suitable herbivores and altering their biological control process. The development ...
Abstract: Background: The black soldier fly (Hermetia illucens) is the most promising insect candidate for nutrient-recycling through bioconversion of organic waste into biomass, thereby improving sustainability of protein supplies for animal feed and facilitating transition to a circular economy. Contrary to conventional livestock, genetic resources of farmed insects remain poorly characterised. We present the first comprehensive population genetic characterisation of H. illucens. Based on ...
Abstract: The spotted wing drosophila, Drosophila suzukii Matsumura, is an insect pest of soft-skinned fruit, native to Eastern Asia. Since 2008, a world-wide dispersal of D. suzukii is seen, characterized by the establishment of the pest in many Asian, American and European countries. While the potential for invasion of continental Africa by D. suzukii has been predicted, its presence has only been shown for Morocco in Northern Africa. Knowledge about a possible establishment in other parts...
Abstract: Pollinators use multiple cues whilst foraging including direct cues from flowers and indirect cues from other pollinators. The use of indirect social cues is common in social insects, such as honeybees and bumblebees, where a social environment facilitates the ability to use such cues. Bumblebees use cues to forage on flowers according to previous foraging experiences. Flowers are an essential food source for pollinators but also pose a high risk of parasite infection through the s...
Abstract: Field trapping experiments investigated the response of the pollen beetle Astylus atromaculatus to visual and olfactory cues during a 3-year period, 1999–2001. The visual preference of the pollen beetle was determined using yellow, white, blue, green and red water traps. The yellow trap was most attractive, capturing 56% of the total beetles trapped, with 30% caught by the blue and white traps, while 14% was caught by the red and green traps. The response of the beetle to olfacto...
Abstract: The prey choice behavior and predatory strategies of two East African assassin bugs, Scipinnia repax (Stäl 1961) and Nagusta sp. (Hemiptera: Reduviidae), were investigated in the field and the laboratory. Both of these species are from the subfamily Harpactorinae and specialize in eating spiders. They prey especially often on social jumping spiders (Salticidae) that build nest complexes (nests connected by silk) in vegetation near the shoreline of Lake Victoria. Both reduviid spec...
Abstract: Honey bee colony infection by the small hive beetle (SHB) is associated with fermentation of hive materials. Pollen, beetles and robbing bees ( ten of each) ......
Abstract: We studied the ovary structure and initial stages of oogenesis in 15 representatives of several dermapteran taxa, including the epizoic Arixeniina. In all examined species, the ovaries are meroisticepolytrophic.The ovaries of the basal taxa (‘Pygidicranidae’, ‘Diplatyidae’, and Labiduridae) are composed of elongated ovarioles, attached to short lateral oviducts. In these groups, ovarioles contain several (more than 30) ovarian follicles in a linear arrangement. In the Euder...
Abstract: In East Africa, insect farming is a rapidly growing business providing access to ‘climate-smart’ protein, other nutrients, and income. With the continental drive to transform existing food systems that are becoming continuously unsustainable due to scarcity of arable land and water, and high ecological imprint, insect farming for food and feed with circular economy potential has gained remarkable interest. In this review, we report on the recent research trends on key substrate...
Abstract: Globally, the expansion of livestock and fisheries production is severely constrained due to the increasing costs and ecological footprint of feed constituents. The utilization of black soldier fly (BSF) as an alternative protein ingredient to fishmeal and soybean in animal feed has been widely documented. The black soldier fly larvae (BSFL) used are known to voraciously feed and grow in contaminated organic wastes. Thus, several concerns about their safety for inclusion into anima...
Abstract: Chalcidoidea are mostly parasitoid wasps that include as many as 500 000 estimated species. Capturing phylogenetic signal from such a massive radiation can be daunting. Chalcidoidea is an excellent example of a hyperdiverse group that has remained recalcitrant to phylogenetic resolution. We combined 1007 exons obtained with Anchored Hybrid Enrichment with 1048 ultra-conserved elements (UCEs) for 433 taxa including all extant families, >95% of all subfamilies, and 356 genera chosen ...
Abstract: A bee’s ability to return home, its homing ability, can be used as a proxy for the maximum foraging distance of that species. Body size is hypothesized to affect foraging distance with larger bees having larger foraging ranges. In this study, we estimated the maximum foraging distance of six different afrotropical stingless bee species (Meliponula bocandei, Meliponula ferruginea, Meliponula togoensis, Meliponula beccarii, Plebeina armata and Hypotrigona gribodoi.) in two differen...
Abstract: The small hive beetle Aethina tumida Murray, is an African native that has become an invasive pest of honeybees in North America. The beetle is capable of rapid population growth on pollen,honey, and bee brood. It is also capable of feeding and reproducing on various kinds of fruit, but its ability to sustain population growth on diets other than bee products has remained unknown. We examined this question by observing A. tumida on 2 diets: pollen dough (inoculated with a species o...
Abstract: Insects are among the most successful organisms in the animal Kingdom. Their capacity to survive and reproduce depends greatly on their ability to identify and respond selectively to cues from a heterogeneous environment. They can identify conspecifics and mates, differentiate between hosts, both plant and animal, and distinguish between many microclimatic factors such as variation in humidity, temperature and airflow. All these factors are attributed to the complexity of their sen...