The Biology and Ecology of the Diamondback Moth, Plutella xylostella (L.) in Eastern Ontario Revisited

Abstract

Diamondback moth, Plutella xylostella Linnaeus (Lepidoptera: Plutellidae) is a globally distributed pest on brassicaceous crops. This study aimed to follow up with aspects of earlier research, mainly to revisit the potential for overwintering of diamondback moth in the Ottawa area, to investigate present day population dynamics using a life-table approach and to use next generation sequencing to describe the diamondback moth microbiome. A review of the literature has reaffirmed that diamondback moth may not be capable of overwintering in Ottawa with populations likely migrant-driven. The population dynamics and parasitoid community appear to be unaltered after 65 years. The microbiome of diamondback moth larvae was dominated by Enterococcaceae, a family of bacteria hypothesized to aid in resistance and detoxification. These findings can provide opportunities for the introduction of new biological control agents and tools for diamondback moth management in the future.iii First, I would like to honour my study species the diamondback moth; it was a privilege to work in this unique study system and to be a part of many generations of researchers that have investigated its biology. I had limitless material and much inspiration to do my research on, building upon the work from previous researchers and to make my small contribution to the diverse body of knowledge on this particular economically important species.I would like to thank my supervisors Peter Mason and Naomi Cappuccino for their support and guidance in my projects, as well as funding that kept me out of living in a cardboard box. I would also like to thank Alex Wong, for not only agreeing to be on my committee, but lending his guidance, laboratory space and laboratory equipment for me to learn all about the world of molecular biology and bioinformatics. I thank Risa Sargent for being on my committee and for her inquisitive questions. I would also like to thank my honourary committee member Wen Chen for her tireless efforts and guidance of bioinformatics pipelines and software, and for taking me on as a participant of her lab in the biocluster for my analyses.I would also like to thank Ana-Maria Farmakis for helping maintain the insect cultures and for being very accommodating if I came short. Andrea Brauner for helping with pheromone traps, HOBOs, photoshoots and lending an ear for my troubles.Jake Miall for stoking the fires of natural history and grounding my ecologically driven questions. Paul Abram for being special guest editor on my work and statistical support. Tim Haye for comments on the life table chapter and initial experimental design.Aleksandra Spasojevic for lending me the Tinytag data loggers for the overwintering experiment. Chris Schmidt for lending me his environmental chambers to produce many well timed life stages. Jessica Hsiung for providing fantastic illustrations. Ross iv Weiss for providing data outputs from the DYMEX bio-climatic and reverse wind trajectory models. I would also like to thank: Nadine Gaskell, Christine Cock, Noah M...

First Field Release of a Genetically Engineered, Self-Limiting Agricultural Pest Insect: Evaluating Its Potential for Future Crop Protection

“…Fecundity was assumed to be 10 eggs/day and sex ratio of eggs was 0.5. Note that reproductive rate and mortality vary considerably in temperate North America (Harcourt, 1985;Dancau, 2018). Therefore, the values of E at time t for the viable sexes and genotypes are E(f , w, t) = 10x0.5xA(f , w, t)x P(w) E(m, w, t) = 10x0.5xA(f , w, t)x P(w) E(m, y, t) = 10x0.5xA(f , w, t)x P(y)…”