The western corn rootworm (WCR), Diabrotica virgifera virgifera LeConte, is the most serious insect pest of corn (Zea mays L.) in the United States and parts of Europe, and arguably one of the world’s most expensive pests to control. Several diet formulations are currently used by industry and public researchers to evaluate WCR larvae in diet-toxicity bioassays. However, a publicly available diet that produces normative insects that are physiologically similar to WCR larvae reared on corn roots will accelerate development of management technologies. We report a new diet formulation that supports improved weight gain, larval development and survival compared with the only public diet for WCR that is currently available in the refereed literature. The formulation was created by using response surface methods combined with n-dimensional mixture designs to identify and improve the formulation of key ingredients. Weight gain increased two-fold, and survival and molting rates increased from 93% and 90%, respectively when reared on the public diet, to approximately 99% for both survival and molting at 11 days when reared on our new formulation. This new formulation provides a standardized growth medium for WCR larvae that will facilitate comparison of research results from various working groups and compliance with regulatory requirements.
Insect resistance to transgenic crops is a growing concern for farmers, regulatory agencies, the seed industry, and researchers. Since 2009, instances of field-evolved Bt resistance or cross resistance have been documented for each of the four Bt proteins available for western corn rootworm (WCR), a major insect pest. To characterize resistance, WCR populations causing unexpected damage to Bt maize are evaluated in plant and/or diet toxicity assays. Currently, it is not possible to make direct comparisons of data from different Bt proteins due to differing proprietary artificial diets. Our group has developed a new, publicly available diet (WCRMO-1) with improved nutrition for WCR larvae. For the current manuscript, we tested the compatibility of all Bt proteins currently marketed for WCR on the WCRMO-1 diet and specific proprietary diets corresponding to each toxin using a susceptible colony of WCR. We also tested WCR colonies selected for resistance to each protein to assess the ability of the diet toxicity assay to detect Bt resistance. The WCRMO-1 diet is compatible with each of the proteins and can differentiate resistant colonies from susceptible colonies for each protein. Our diet allows researchers to monitor resistance without the confounding nutritional differences present between diets.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.
hi@scite.ai
10624 S. Eastern Ave., Ste. A-614
Henderson, NV 89052, USA
Copyright © 2024 scite LLC. All rights reserved.
Made with 💙 for researchers
Part of the Research Solutions Family.