The Amino Acid Requirements of the Pink Bollworm

Effects of compost and chicken litter on soil nutrition, and sugarcane physiochemistry, yield, and injury caused by Mexican rice borer, Eoreuma loftini (Dyar) (Lepidoptera: Crambidae)

“…Diminished yield parameters where soil fertility was greatest may be linked to the enhanced nutritional value of those plants. In this instance, we demonstrated that heightened levels of N were associated with accumulations of free amino acids, some of them essential for insect growth and development (Vanderzant, 1958;Nation, 2002). Host plant selection among lepidopterans, including stem borers, involves visual factors such as leaf shape, color, and size (Renwick and Radke, 1988;Renwick and Chew, 1994;Showler and Castro, 2010b), but chemical cues play the major, if not decisive, role (Munakata and Okamoto, 1967;Saito and Munakata, 1970;Schur and Holdaway, 1970;Waladde, 1983;Ramaswamy, 1988).…”

“…Free histidine, an essential amino acid that has increased in association with drought in every reported instance, has also been associated with host plant species preference for the beet armyworm (Showler, 2001), and Vanderzant (1958) determined that increased arginine and histidine were important for growth of pink bollworm larvae, Pectinophora gossypiella (Saunders). Individual amino acids differ in their effects on insect performance, and subsets of amino acids are the mechanistic basis of the correlations between total plant N and insect performance.…”

“…Similarly, free arginine was absent from sugarcane juice samples, even under conditions of water deficit, in sugarcane that was nonetheless infested by Mexican rice borer larvae (Reay-Jones et al, 2005). Also, although elevated free histidine concentrations are associated with Mexican rice borer preference to sugarcane under a variety of conditions, balances of important amino acids are substantial factors in insect health and reproduction (Vanderzant, 1958;Nation, 2002). To neonate fall armyworms, amino acids were more important determinants of corn susceptibility than toxins or other factors (Hedin et al, 1990).…”

Associations between host plant concentrations of selected biochemical nutrients and Mexican rice borer, Eoreuma loftini, infestation

“…Seventeen free amino acids were detected in the samples (Table ), including nine essential for insect growth and development: arginine, histidine, isoleucine, leucine, lysine, methionine, phenylalanine, threonine, and valine (tryptophan, the only other essential amino acid for insects, could not be detected with our instrumentation) (Vanderzant, ; Nation, ). Differences in concentrations of all the free amino acids between the forage and weed species were detected (Table ).…”

A lepidopteran aminoacylase (L-ACY-1) in Heliothis virescens (Lepidoptera: Noctuidae) gut lumen hydrolyzes fatty acid–amino acid conjugates, elicitors of plant defense

“…Neonates were transferred to 2oz cups containing about 1 mL of corn earworm artificial diet from Southland Products. The caterpillars were maintained at 25 C for 14 h light followed by 10 h dark at 23 C. After molting into the fifth instar, H. virescens individuals were transferred into new diet cups containing an artificial diet made from individual amino acids rather than protein as described by Vanderzant (1958). The caterpillars were allowed to feed for several days before frass was collected and stored at À20 C for extraction.…”