Insects are associated with multiple microbes that have been reported to influence various aspects of their biology. Most studies in insects, including pest species, focus on the bacterial communities of the microbiome even though the microbiome consists of members of many more kingdoms, which can also have large influence on the life history of insects. In this review, we present some key examples of how the different members of the microbiome, such as bacteria, fungi, viruses, archaea, and protozoa, affect the fitness and behavior of pest insects. Moreover, we argue that interactions within and among microbial groups are abundant and of great importance, necessitating the use of a community approach to study microbial–host interactions. We propose that the restricted focus on bacteria very likely hampers our understanding of the functioning and impact of the microbiome on the biology of pest insects. We close our review by highlighting a few open questions that can provide an in‐depth understanding of how other components of the microbiome, in addition to bacteria, might influence host performance, thus contributing to pest insect ecology.

The invasive fly Drosophila suzukii is a pest that can infest a diverse range of intact, ripening fruits, using its serrated ovipositor. This constitutes a different niche compared to the rotting fruits its ancestors use, especially because these intact fruits have limited quantities of microbes and soluble nutrients for the developing larvae. To investigate the potential role of microbial associations in the niche expansion of this invasive fly, we characterized the bacterial and fungal communities of D. suzukii and various wild fruits from which they developed. To assess cross-generational microbial associations, we also lab-reared fly populations and characterized their microbial communities. Diversity metrics of microbial communities differed significantly between flies and fruits. Different fruit types varied substantially in microbial composition, while flies showed relatively uniform bacterial communities, irrespective of the fruit source they developed on. After approximately ten generations of lab-rearing, bacterial communities still showed considerable overlap with those of wild flies. Fungal communities of flies and fruits showed larger resemblance, with a substantial overlap between wild flies and the fruits on which they had developed. Our study thus reports that the fungal community structure in these pests largely reflects those on the breeding substrates, while these flies might have formed more persistent associations with some bacteria and transmit these across generations.

Purpose To validate the AO Spine Subaxial Injury Classification System with participants of various experience levels, subspecialties, and geographic regions. Methods A live webinar was organized in 2020 for validation of the AO Spine Subaxial Injury Classification System. The validation consisted of 41 unique subaxial cervical spine injuries with associated computed tomography scans and key images. Intraobserver reproducibility and interobserver reliability of the AO Spine Subaxial Injury Classification System were calculated for injury morphology, injury subtype, and facet injury. The reliability and reproducibility of the classification system were categorized as slight (ƙ = 0–0.20), fair (ƙ = 0.21–0.40), moderate (ƙ = 0.41–0.60), substantial (ƙ = 0.61–0.80), or excellent (ƙ = > 0.80) as determined by the Landis and Koch classification. Results A total of 203 AO Spine members participated in the AO Spine Subaxial Injury Classification System validation. The percent of participants accurately classifying each injury was over 90% for fracture morphology and fracture subtype on both assessments. The interobserver reliability for fracture morphology was excellent (ƙ = 0.87), while fracture subtype (ƙ = 0.80) and facet injury were substantial (ƙ = 0.74). The intraobserver reproducibility for fracture morphology and subtype were excellent (ƙ = 0.85, 0.88, respectively), while reproducibility for facet injuries was substantial (ƙ = 0.76). Conclusion The AO Spine Subaxial Injury Classification System demonstrated excellent interobserver reliability and intraobserver reproducibility for fracture morphology, substantial reliability and reproducibility for facet injuries, and excellent reproducibility with substantial reliability for injury subtype.

We would be very grateful if donors think twice before donating drugs and medical equipment to developing nations. Please check with them first as to what their needs are and also follow the WHO and local guidelines.

Atomic swap facilitates fair exchange of cryptocurrencies without the need for a trusted authority. It is regarded as one of the prominent technologies for the cryptocurrency ecosystem, helping to realize the idea of a decentralized blockchain introduced by Bitcoin. However, due to the heterogeneity of the cryptocurrency systems, developing efficient and privacy-preserving atomic swap protocols has proven challenging. In this thesis, we propose a generic framework for atomic swap, called PolySwap, that enables fair ex-change of assets between two heterogeneous sets of blockchains. Our construction 1) does not require a trusted third party, 2) preserves the anonymity of the swap by preventing transactions from being linked or distinguished, and 3) does not require any scripting capability in blockchain. To achieve our goal, we introduce a novel secret sharing signature(SSSig) scheme to remove the necessity of common interfaces between blockchains in question. These secret sharing signatures allow an arbitrarily large number of signatures to be bound together such that the release of any single transaction on one blockchain opens the remaining transactions for the other party, allowing multi-chain atomic swaps while still being indistinguishable from a standard signature. We provide construction details of secret sharing signatures for ECDSA, Schnorr, and CryptoNote-style Ring signatures. Additionally, we provide an alternative contingency protocol, allowing parties to exchange to and from blockchains that do not support any form of time-locked escape transactions. A successful execution of PolySwap shows that it takes 8.3 seconds to complete an atomic swap between Bitcoin's Testnet3 and Ethereum's Rinkeby (excluding confirmation time).

Molecular analyses of host-associated microorganisms have demonstrated the essential role that the microbiome plays in host development. Approaches targeting the sequencing of ribosomal genes have successfully identified key species of the host-associated microbiome. However, it remains unclear to what extent the strain-specific characteristics influence the outcome of the host-microbiome interactions. This is particularly important for insect pests, where microbial species might be used as targets for biocontrol purposes. Understanding strain-level variation represents thus a crucial step in determining the microbial impact on hosts. To investigate the microbial strain-level effects on an invasive insect pest, Drosophila suzukii, we compared the impact of monocultures and cocultures of different bacterial and yeast strains. We investigated whether different strains of Gluconobacter and Pichia differentially influenced the larval development of the pest. Fly trait measurements demonstrated beneficial, although variable, impact of these microbial strains on the fitness of suzukii. Using cocultures of microbial strains, we found that in some combinations, the beneficial effects were intermediate between those of the respective monocultures. In contrast, in other cases, strong inhibitory effects were observed. Hence, our study reports that strain-level effects within species are present in D. suzukii, reinforcing the importance of assessing the impact of associated microbiota on pest insects at the strain level.HighlightsMicrobial strains make up an essential part of the diversity of an insect host’sCharacterizing and accounting for strain-specific impact on a pest’s life-history traits and different combinations of strains constitute an important step in our understanding of the pest management strategies.We investigated whether there was any strain-specific impact of bacteria and yeasts on the larval development of a frugivorous pest.We observed that strains varied in their impact, both as monocultures and cocultures, indicating their importance in modifying the host ecology.Our study adds to the growing literature on the importance of strains in pest insects.

No abstract

No abstract