Successful mass rearing is crucial for sterile insect technique programs. It has been shown that the sterilizing process using gammaradiation results in damage to midgut tissue, cellular organelles, and gut microbiota of flies. This can be responsible for the inferiority of sterile males compared with wild males. A bacteria-enhanced diet could contribute to the improvement of the fly's fitness. We investigated ways of increasing the competitiveness of mass-reared Mediterranean fruit fly, Ceratitis capitata (Wiedemann) sterile males. We tested the hypothesis that the addition of beneficial bacteria to the larvae's diet would lead to a significant increase in their levels in the gut of the sterile adults and consequently improve their size and fitness. As expected, enriching the diet of mass-rearing Vienna-8 strain larvae with beneficial bacteria (Klebsiella pneumonia, Enterobacter spp., and Citrobacter freundii) resulted in increase in the number of Enterobacteriacae communities inhabiting the male's gut and a subsequent significant increase in the size of males and other morphometric traits and enhanced sexual performance of males at emergence.

The fruits of two plants from Algeria (Quercus and Pistacia lentiscus) were investigated. The paper reports the chemical characteristics and the fatty acid composition of the oil extracts from the fruits. The black fruits of P. lentiscus has the highest crude fat of 32.8%, followed by the red fruits with 11.7%, and the lowest value of 9% in Quercus (acorn). The acid value was highest in red fruits of P. lentiscus oil (24.0 mg KOH/g), followed by the black fruits oil and lowest in acorn oil. The relatively high iodine value in the oils indicates the presence of many unsaturated bonds. Saponification value was highest in the Quercus ilex oil (166.7 mg KOH/g), while the lowest value was in the black fruits of P. lentiscus oil. Gas-liquid chromatography revealed that the three dominant fatty acids found are: palmitic C16:0 (16.3-19.5%), oleic C18:1 (55.3-64.9%), linoleic C18:2 (17.6-28.4%). The oils contain an appreciable amount of unsaturated fatty acids (78.8-83.5%).

Clones of the WWE1 (Waste Water of Evry 1) candidate division were retrieved during the exploration of the bacterial diversity of an anaerobic mesophilic (35 ± 0.5°C) digester. In order to investigate the metabolic function of WWE1 members, a 16S rRNA gene-based stable isotope probing (SIP) method was used. Eighty-seven percent of 16S r rRNA gene sequences affiliated to WWE1 candidate division were retrieved in a clone library obtained after polymerase chain reaction (PCR) amplification of enriched DNA fraction from anaerobic municipal solid waste samples incubated with 13C-cellulose, at the end of the incubation (day 63) using a Pla46F-1390R primer pair. The design of a specific WWE1 probe associated with the fluorescence in situ hybridization (FISH) technique corroborated the abundant representation of WWE1 members in our 13C-cellulose incubations. Secondary ion mass spectrometry–in situ hybridization (SIMSISH) using an iodine-labeled oligonucleotide probe combined with high-resolution nanometer-scale SIMS (NanoSIMS) observation confirmed the isotopic enrichment of members of WWE1 candidate division. The 13C apparent isotopic composition of hybridized WWE1 cells reached the value of about 40% early during the cellulose degradation process, suggesting that these bacteria play a role either in an extracellular cellulose hydrolysis process and/or in the uptake fermentation products.

The disease caused by Tomato spotted wilt virus (TSWV) belongs to the most destructive diseases of tomato all over the world. Therefore, tomato has been subjected to many breeding efforts, including the incorporation of resistance to the virus. Recently emerged approaches, ideas and technologies could affect the future direction of the virus resistance breeding. In particular molecular techniques have provided opportunities in the form of linked molecular markers to speed up and simplify the selection of host resistance genes. Transformation of an inbred tomato line with the TSWV nucleoprotein gene cassette resulted in high levels of resistance to TSWV that have been retained in the hybrids derived from the parental tomato line. These and other techniques offer great opportunities for improving the virus resistance and, therefore, it is time to reconsider the future direction of resistance breeding in tomato. The effort has been made to review available sources of resistance, conventional breeding methods, marker-assisted selection, pathogen-derived resistance and transgenic resistance approaches in this paper.

Strong demand for food requires specific efforts by researchers involved in the agricultural sector to develop means for sufficient production. While, agriculture today faces challenges such as soil fertility loss, climate change and increased attacks of pathogens and pests. The production of sufficient quantities in a sustainable and healthy farming system is based on environmentally friendly approaches such as the use of biofertilizers, biopesticides and the return of crop residues. The multiplicity of beneficial effects of soil microorganisms, particularly plant growth promotion (PGP), highlights the need to further strengthen the research and its use in modern agriculture. Rhizobia are considered as PGP comes in symbiosis with legumes taking advantage of nutrients from plant root exudates. When interacting with legumes, rhizobia help in increased plant growth through enriching nutrients by nitrogen fixation, solubilizing phosphates and producing phytohormones, and rhizobia can increase plants' protection by influencing the production of metabolites, improve plant defense by triggering systemic resistance induced against pests and pathogens. In addition, rhizobia contain useful variations to tolerate abiotic stresses such as extreme temperatures, pH, salinity and drought. The search for rhizobium tolerant strains is expected to improve plant growth and yield, even under a combination of constraints. This chapter summarizes the use of rhizobia in agriculture and its benefits.