The infectious pathogens against honeybee (Apis mellifera) comprise a heterogeneous group of bacterial, viral, and fungal organisms including Paenibacillus larvae, Deformed Wing Virus (DWV) and Nosema apis. Many species like Paenibacillus larvae, Deformed Wing Virus (DWV) and Nosema apis have been isolated from a number of different continents, e.g. America, Asia and Europe, indicating its wide spread in whole nature. Little is known about the occurrence and distribution in the environment of these pathogens. For a more rapid, systematic and efficient monitoring of each pathogenic species against honeybee in the environment, PCR-based detection systems were developed that allows species-specific identifications of various pathogenic species with one reaction. These could be achieved by selecting specific primers from conserved regions of each species with speciesspecific DNA sequence variations. For the detection of any already known pathogen, well-developed PCR-detection system allows the specific detection of expected pathogenic species based on its specific nucleic acid sequence. Since each pathogenic species delivers a specific PCR-product of different size, bands can be distinguished very easily by simple gel electrophoresis. After the development of real-time PCR system, PCR-based specific detections of honeybee pathogens were dramatically improved their applications, from just detection to quantification of pathogens. These systems, quantitative PCR (qPCR) for the detection of honeybee pathogens, could be distinguished from previous PCR detection on the points of “real-time”, “easy” and “quantitative”. Moreover, very rapid PCR, so-called “Ultra-Rapid Real-Time PCR” were developed recently in field of pathogen-detection. Typical Honeybee pathogens such as Paenibacillus larvae, Israelli acute paralysis virus (IAPV) were successfully detected inner 7 minutes using 30 cycled Ultrarapid PCR. According to development of more rapid apparatus, even 30 cycled, 1 minute PCR seems to be possible. Ultla-Rapid PCR was currently attempted to apply for the direct detection system of all viral pathogens against honeybee from bee-samples and different environmental probes.

Climate change and global warming are directly effecting the population dynamics of insects of medical importance and insect pests of agricultural commodities during the last few years. The outbreak of some insect-borndiseases and decreasing yield of agricultural products are both caused and results of climate change are known everywhere in the world. Recent reports of honey bee diseases and out breaks, as well as increase in the incidence of CCD(Collapse Colonial Disease) are causing great concerns and pose big problem for our bee keepers in many countries in North America and Europe. These important infectious diseases are possible carried and propagated by bee mites primarily by Varroa mites, which have recently experienced increasing populations in USA and UK includes some European countries. Recently some Asian honey bees adapted to live in the urban areas as the example of Apis dorsata move to Mae Fah Luang Campus more than 30 colonies and even in Chulalonkorn Campus more than 10 colonies increase from few colonies in the the last few years. Apis florea have been found more than 161 colonies this year in Kanchanaburi (River Kwai province) this year(2009). The discussion of some wild honey bees migration will concentrate on research program of our bee research unit of the university in Thailand.

Insect science has been experiencing the power of genomics and new developing technologies in the last decade. Currently, more than 29 species of arthropod genome sequencing projects have been completed or in progress. The number of species being sequenced will be rapidly increased in the near future by taking advantage of reduced sequencing cost and developing new sequencing technologies. At the same time, other technologies in bioscience have also been undergone rapid development. Among many, the most noticeable techniques that have been applied in the studies of insect science are proteomics, insect transgenesis, and RNA interference (RNAi). Like other important transitional points in biology aided by technological revolution, breaking the technical limitations is expected to lead to innovations in biological concepts.

MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are endogenous non-coding genes that participate in post-transcription regulation by either degrading mRNA or blocking its translation. It is considered to be very important in regulating insect development and metamorphosis. Insects are the largest group of animals and are extremely valuable in biological and agriculture research. Insects are also important pests to human health and agriculture, and efforts are necessary protect both humans and plants from disease and damage. Despite their importance, insects lag behind mammals, nematodes, and plants in miRNA research. At present, only 279 insect miRNAs have been identified from Drosophila melanogaster, Anopheles gambiae, Apis mellifera, Bombyx mori, and D. pseudoobscura in miRBase, and most of these miRNAs were computationally predicted without experimental validation. Functional analysis of insect miRNAs has only been conducted in D. melanogaster.

한국산 잎벌레과(Chrysomelidae)는 총 15아과 370여종이 기록되어 있으며 많은 농업 및 임업해충을 포함하고 있다. 잎벌레과는 분류군에 따라서 유충과 성충의 기주와 섭식부위가 다양하여 농작물에 많은 피해를 줄 수 있으며, 최근에는 국내 주요해충 8아과 40종에 대한 연구가 수행되기도 하였다. 하지만, 성충의 형태분류에 비교하여 유충의 형태분류가 아직 미흡한 국내 실정으로는 주로 문제가 되는 미지의 유충 발생 때 신속한 종 동정을 기대하기 어려운 실정이다. 이러한 문제점을 보완하기 위하여 이번 연구에서는 주요해충 25종을 포함하여 총 57종의 잎벌레과의 DNA 바코드를 분석하였다. 그 결과로 종간 서열 차이는 5.5%～36.4%로 나타났으며, 전체 평균은 23.6%였다. 또한, 동일 속의 종간에도 5.5%～25.5%의 서열 차이를 나타내었다. 따라서 잎벌레과의 유전적 분화율은 비교적 큰 편이며, DNA 분자마커를 이용한 잎벌레해충군의 동정은 비교적 용이할 것으로 사료된다. 특히 유충을 비롯한 각 생활사 단계의 형태에 대한 동정에 있어도 DNA 바코드 비교를 통해 손쉽고 빠르게 종을 인식할 수 있게 될 것임을 시사한다. 다만, 이번 연구에서 각 종당 샘플 수가 1～3개체로 다소 적었으며, 주요해충 종의 같은 속내의 근친 종에 대한 분석의 부족 등은 향후 보완되어야 할 점으로 나타났다.

최근 DNA 바코드를 이용한 분자분류가 동물계 전반에서 빠른 종판별 수단으로 각광받고 있다. 하지만, 과 단위 이상의 분류군에서 전체종이나 그에 상응할 수 있는 지역상 곤충 분류를 수행할 수 있는지에 대한 연구는 아직 부족한 실정이다. 이에 딱정벌레목 가운데 형태분류가 비교적 잘 정립된 한국산 병대벌레과(Cantharidae) 전체 종을 대상으로 DNA바코드를 이용한 종 판별 결과가 기존의 형태분류의 결과물과 어떤 관련성으로 나타날 수 있는지 검토하고자 하였다. 이번 실험에서는 한국산 병대벌레과 총 4아과 13속 33종 중 DNA stock 확보가 가능한 총 4아과 11속 27종에서 DNA 바코드를 우선 분석하였다. 그 결과, 병대벌레과의 분석종들은 0.6%에서 31.7%의 상당히 큰 폭으로 종간 유전적 분화율을 나타내었으나, NJ phenogram에서는 각 종간에 뚜렷이 구분되는 분지가 형성되었다. 특히, DNA 바코드 상에서의 종간 서열 차이가 비교적 작은 수치일지라도, 형태분류학의 동일 종의 샘플들의 분지는 같은 매듭(node)으로 수렴되었다. 이것으로 볼 때, 분자분류에서 유전자의 분화율과 함께 NJ phenogram 상에서의 분지양상 역시 중요한 종 동정 요인임을 알 수 있었다. 이번 연구의 결과는 딱정벌레목에서 과 수준에서의 DNA 바코드을 이용한 종 동정 활용에 있어 좋은 예가 될 수 있을 것으로 사료되었다.

We reviewed the tribe Oidaematophorini from the Korean peninsula. Fourteen species of 5 genera are recognized including new species, Hellinsia chuncheonensis sp. nov. and H. cyrtoacantha sp. nov. Five species are also reported as new to Korea: Adaina microdactyla (Hübner [1813]), Hellinsia ishiyamanus (Matsumura 1931), H. kuwayamai (Matsumura 1931), H. nigridactyla (Yano 1961) and Oidaematophorus iwatensis (Matsumura 1931). All the available information, including distributional ranges and biology of each taxon, is provided. The keys to the genera and species of Oidaematophotini is given. Illustrations of the images and male and female genitalia are provided.

Study of the Korean Hemerobiidae has been so scarce that only three species in two genera were recorded in the list of insects in Korea (1994). Here we report two undescribed species, Hemerobius harmandinus and Micromus variegatus, new to Korea. Descriptions and images of the adults and their genitalia are provided.

Metcalfa pruinosa (Say) (Hemiptera: Flatidae), the citrus flatid planthopper(CFP) is suddenly discovered this year in Seoul and Gyeonggi Province, Korea. CFP is originally distributed in the Eastern parts of North America(Metcalf and Bruner 1948), and recently spreading to European countries(Baker et al. 2008) such as northern Italy, Spain, and France. It is an economically important plant-sucking insect having wide host range including many agricultural crops such as grapefruit and citrus, and ornamental trees, camellias, azaleas, and magnolias(Dean and Bailey 1961) mediating plant viruses. We discovered large samples on Hosta longipes (Franch. & Sav.) Matsumura, Liriope platyphylla F.T.Wang & T.Tang, Weigela subsessilis L.H.Bailey, etc. in Seoul and Suwon on August 2009. In this report, we announce their taxonomic position, morphological characters, distribution, host information, and importance as a possible pest in the Korean peninsula.

Aphid is relatively young group among insects, which radiated contemporaneously with the host plants in angiosperm. Based on recent molecular phylogenetic studies, the tribe Aphidini has been strongly suggested as a primitive group sister to two other tribes, Macrosiphini and Pterocommatini, in the subfamily Aphidinae which is most diversified aphid group. These ideas have been proposed due to the phylogenetic relationships between the groups and the relatively simple morphological characters. Our study is aimed to confirm the evolutionary process of this primitive group in order to understand the diversification of the modern aphids. Firstly, we obtained the phylogenetic relationships for 59 ingroup species plus 10 outgroup species (6 macrosiphine species, 1 hormaphidine species, and 3 adelgids) based on the combined sequences (2,899 bp) of three mitochondrial genes (COI, COII, CytB) and one nuclear gene (EF1α). The optimal tree topology is obtained by the ML analysis in GARLI 0.95b with Kishino-Hasegawa and Shimodaira-Hasegawa tests in PAUP*4b10, and the posterior probabilities on each node were estimated by MrBayes 3.1.1 under the best fit model (GTR+I+G) tested by MrMODELTEST 3.0. Then, the node ages of the obtained tree were calibrated using the relaxed-clock model implemented in BEAST 1.4.8 and its package programs based on one node fixation of 150 MYA (million years ago) for Aphididae+Adelgidae, and two node constraints as 80-100 MYA for Aphididae crown and 50-70 MYA for Aphidinae crown according to the fossil related publications. As results, we found four major facts on their evolution: 1) Aphidini radiated from the early Eocene in the Tertiary, 2) however, most lineages rapidly radiated during the late Eocene, 3) common ancestor of the subtribe Aphidina maybe fed on herbs or shrubs in asterids, 4) host alternation trait was lately acquired on Rosaceae- or Rhamnaceae-feeding aphids.

Platygaster robiniae Buhl and Duso (Hymenoptera: Platygastridae) is a gregarious koinobiont endoparasitoid of Obolodiplosis robiniae (Haldeman) (Diptera: Cecidomyiidae). The life cycle and development of the parasite is described. P. robiniae proves to be an egg-larval parasitoid, parasitizing eggs of O. robiniae and emerging from host larvae, and eggs of the wasp develop monembryonically. Its egg and embryonic stages are prolonged to some extent. The parasitoid undergoes only one larval instar, and total development time from egg to adult takes about 28 days to complete. The life cycle of a parasitoid generation is perfectly synchronized with that of the host: the waps emerges near the emergence time of the host, so that they can parasitize host eggs.

The first comprehensive cladistic analysis of Miridae, the plant bugs, based on ~3000 base pairs of mitochondrial (COI, 16S) and nuclear (18S, 28SD3) genes, is presented. For 105 taxa (101 Mirid species in 7 subfamilies and 11 tribes, and 4 outgroups) in 7 subfamilies and 11 tribes of Miridae, the combined dataset was analyzed using ML (maximum likelihood), BC (bayesian criteria) and MP (maximum parsimony). Clades recovered in all analyses, comprise 6 main groups: Cimicomorpha and Miridae; Phylinae; Mirinae (Eurystylus + Polymerus + Proboscidocoris + Taylorilygus + Stenodemini); Orthotylinae; Mirini (Adelphocoris group except “Apolygus complex”); Apolygus complex; Deraecorinae; Bryocorinae + Isometopinae + Cylapinae. Our results indicate 1) the monophyletic relationships of two subfamilies Phylinae and Deraeocorinae within the family Miridae; 2) the paraphyly of subfamily Mirinae. Phylogenetic relationships at the tribal or subfamily level are provided in comparison with the prior studies based on morphological data.

Twenty-five species of the genus Psallus Fieber 1858 are revised from Korean Peninsula. Two new species are described: Psallus sp. nov. 1 and P. sp. nov. 2. Four species, Psallus rogeoguttatus Yasunaga et Vinokurov 2000, P. cinnabarinus Kerzhner 1979, P. flavescens Kerzhner 1988, and P. longinovae Kerzhner 1988 are reported for the first time. The checklist is reconstructed and a key is provided to distinguish all Korean species with the clear dorsal photos and illustrations of male genitalia. In addition, biology is discussed for all possible species according to collection data.

There has been a substantial controversy on the phylogenetic relationships among butterfly families and several competing phylogenetic hypothesis have been suggested. Among them the relationships of (((Nymphalidae + Lycaenidae) + Pieridae) + Papilionidae) has been further widely accepted. In this study, we sequenced EF1-α, COI, and 16S rRNA from 62 species belonging to four true butterfly families, Papilionoidea. Phylogenetic analyses using BI, ML, and MP showed that the traditionally recognizable families were strongly supported as monophyletic groups, with the exception of Nymphalidae, wherein the singly included species of Danainae was placed as basal lineage of the Nymphalidae + Lycaenidae group. Phylogenetic relationships among families supported the sister group relationship of Nymphalidae and Lycaenidae strongly by all analyses and placed Papilionidae as the most basal lineage of the Papilionoidea. On the other hand, the relationships of Nymphalidae and Lycaenidae group to Pieridae were either unresolved, revealing trichotomy, or the relationships of (((Nymphalidae + Lycaenidae) + Pieridae) + Papilionidae) as previously supported by several morphological and molecular works supported. Detailed within-family relationships among some genera also are shown in the presentation.

Eumenis autonoe, a member of the lepidopteran family Nymphalidae (superfamily Papilionoidea) is an endangered species, and is found only on one isolated remote island, Jeju in South Korea, on Halla Mt., at altitudes higher than 1,400 meters. In this study, we report the complete mitochondrial genome (mitogenome) of E. autonoe. The 15,489-bp long E. autonoe genome evidenced the typical gene content found in animal mitogenomes, and harbors the gene arrangement identical to all other sequenced lepidopteran insects, which differs from the most common type found in insects, due to the movement of tRNAMet to a position 5’-upstream of tRNAIle. As has been observed in many other lepidopteran insects, no typical ATN codon for the COI gene is available. Thus, we also designated the CGA (arginine) found at the beginning of the COI gene as a lepidopteran COI starter, in accordance with previous suggestions. The 678-bp long A+T-rich region, which is second longest in sequenced lepidopteran insects, harbors 10 identical 27-bp long tandem repeats plus one 13-bp long incomplete final repeat. Such a repeat sequence has been, thus far, only rarely detected in lepidopteran mitogenomes. The E. autonoe A+T-rich region harbors a poly-T stretch of 19 bp and a conserved ATAGA motif located at the end of the region, which have been suggested to function as structural signals for minor-strand mtDNA replication.

Up to now only 17 coleopteran mitogenomes have been fully or near fully sequenced, but this chart does not include any complete mitogenome sequence of the coleopteran infraorder Scarabaeiformia, in which the monotypic Scarabaeoidea is included. In this study, we firstly present three scarabaeoid mitogenomes, two of which are completed and one is near completed. The complete nucleotide sequences of the white-spotted flower chafer, Protaetia brevitarsis (Scarabaeiformia: Scarabaeidae), was determined to be 20,319 bp, the two-spotted stag beetle, Metopodontus blanchardi (Scarabaeiformia: Lucanidae), was 21,678 bp, and the incomplete garden chafer, Polyphylla laticollis (Scarabaeiformia: Scarabaeidae), which lacks sequence information from whole A+T-rich region and a partial srRNA gene was 14,473 bp. Thus, the two complete mitogenome sequences are longest among the completely sequenced insect mitogenomes, followed by the 19,517 bp-long dipteran Drosophila melanogaster. Phylogenetic analysis using the concatenated 13 amino acid sequences of PCGs of the 13 coleopteran insects including three newly sequenced scarabaeoid successfully recovered a monophyly of suborder Polyphaga, a monophyly of infraorder Cucujiformia, a monophyly of infraorder Elateriformia, and also a monophyly of infraorder Scarabaeiformia within Polyphga. However, the Scarabaeiformia represented by three newly sequenced species was unexpectedly placed as a sister group to the Cucujiformia, instead of the placement to the sister to the Cucujiformia and Elateriformia group.

The bumblebee, Bombus ignitus (Hymenoptera: Apidae), is a valuable natural resource that is one of the most notably utilized for greenhouse pollination in Korea. In order to understand the nature of genetic relationships, gene flow, and population structure of the species we sequenced a partial COI gene of mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) corresponding to “animal barcode” region and the complete internal transcribed spacer 2 (ITS2) of the nuclear ribosomal DNA (nrDNA) with the individuals collected from Korean localities. Although the 658-bp long mtDNA sequence provided only six haplotypes with the maximum sequence divergence of 0.456% (3 bp, from 91 individuals), but the ITS sequences provided 33 sequence types with the maximum sequence divergence of 0.78% (16 bp, from 35 individuals), confirming better applicability of the ITS sequences to the study of intraspecific variation. The ITS2 sequences of B. ignitus were shown to be the longest among known insects, ranging in size from 2,034 bp ~ 2,045 bp and harbored two duplicated repeats, indicating unusual structure of B. ignitus ITS2 sequences compared with other insect ITS sequences. Overall, a very high per generation migration ratio, a very low level of genetic fixation, and no discernable hierarchical population/population group were noted to exist among populations of B. ignitus on the basis of both molecules, thus suggesting that the B. ignitus populations on the Korean peninsula are panmictic, which is consistent with our understanding of the dispersal capability.

In order to understand the nature of population genetic structure of the notorious pest insect, Spodoptera litura (Lepidoptera: Noctuidae), a total of 159 individuals of the tobacco cutworm collected from six Korean and five Chinese localities were cloned and sequenced their mitochondrial A+T-rich region. A total of 90 haplotypes ranged 324 bp ~ 372 bp in length and 0.30% ~ 4.85% in sequence divergence. Compared to the preliminary mitochondrial COI gene sequence data that provided nearly identical sequences in all samples, the A+T-rich region provided substantially high sequence variation, validating the applicability of this molecule to the study of intraspecific variation. Overall, a very high per generation migration ratio (Nm = 5.91 ~ infinite), a very low level of genetic fixation (FST = 0 ~ 0.077796), and no discernable isolated population were noted to exist among populations of S. litura, although some significant genetic differentiations were found between several pairs of populations. These results collectively suggest that the S. litura populations in both Korea and China are very well interrelated to each other. The structural analysis revealed that the S. litura A+T-rich region harbored two stretches of the [TA(A)]n sequence, the poly-A stretch, and a stem-and-loop structure that are well found in other lepidopteran A+T-rich region. Furthermore, the region harbors the 13 ~ 19-bp long T stretch and 5-bp long motif that have been suggested to function as a possible recognition site for the initiation of replication of the minor strand of mtDNA also were found.

The family Tortricidae, with just over 9000 described species (Brown 2005), is the second largest lineage in the microlepidoptera, and by far the most important economically. In Vietnam, de Joanis is the first entomologist has created the original data of moths. From 1928-1929, he reported 45 families belong to Lepidoptera and focoused on Noctuidae and Pyralidae. After the Vietnam war in the North (1954), many times were collected in the North by National Institute of Plant Protection (NIPP). But all of them focused on fauna of the agricultural pests. According to the publication of NIPP (1967-1968), 533 species of 37 families. Recently, Korean entomologists have researched on the Lepidoptera in Vietnam by Park et al. (2007) reported 816 species of Lepidoptera classified by 4 families; Noctuidae (564 species), Pyraloidae (201 species), Sphingidae (28 species), and Lecithoceridae (23 species). Vietnamese entomologists' reports have represented a diversity of Lepidoptera in National parks of Vietnam, but all of them focused on macrolepidoptera. In 2001, one new genus and 6 new species belong into Tortricidae in the Southern part has reported by Kuznetzov. In 2008 Razowski announced 10 Tortricidae species in Vietnam. The main aims of this study are to survey of any references of family Tortricidae in North Vietnam, and it also is the first data about Tortricidae in Vietnam. The materials identification based on the collection of University of Incheon, which has collected from 2004-2007. In the taxonomic review of the Tortricidae in Northern part of Vietnam, 40 species (16 species of the subfamily Tortricinae and 24 species of the subfamily Olethreutinae) are recognized. All of them are reported for the first time from Vietnam. Taxonomic review for all species is provided with photos of the adults for the species.