Aphids feed on host plants by penetrating the stems or leaves with stylets. The feeding behavior of aphids consists of probing, penetration, salivation, and sap ingestion. To assess the effects of sound on feeding behavior, we monitored the stylet activity of the green peach aphid, Myzus persicae (Sulzer), using electrical penetration graph (EPG). The use of EPG was critical for determining the stage, frequency, and duration of feeding in aphids. We played back four acoustic stimuli of sine waves with frequencies of 100, 500, 1000, and 5000 Hz to adult aphids. When the sound was treated, the frequencies of probing, penetration, and salivation increased, whereas the duration of sap ingestion decreased. The 100 Hz and 500 Hz was significantly effective to disturb ingestion of phloem sap. The results of EPG revealed that the acoustic stimuli may restrict aphid feeding by disturbing sap ingestion.

Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt) strain K4 was isolated from fallen leaves which had been collected at a forest stand in Mungyeong city, Republic of Korea. The flagellated vegetative cells of Bt K4 were agglutinated with the H3 reference antiserum among 55 reference H-antisera. In a further test to identify subfactors, 3b and 3d monospecific antisera were reactive to the cells, followed up with introducing a novel serogroup of 3a3b3d, designated as serovar mogi. The strain K4 had mosquitocidal activity against Dipteran larvae, Anopheles sinensis and Culex pipiens pallens, with no Lepidopteran toxicity observed. The SDS-PAGE profile of K4 crystal protein, ovoidal-shaped, included several bands ranging from 30-75 kDa. Four putative peptides, Cry19Ba, Cry40ORF2, Cry27Aa and Cry20Aa were detected from the bands by a nano-LC-ESI-IT MS analysis. Through a thermal asymmetric interlaced PCR, cry19Ba, cry40ORF2 and cry27Aa genes were partially cloned from K4 strain. Three cry genes were further found in the strain by a 454 pyrosequencing, ending up to showing 58%, 39% and 84% homology in amino acids with Cry56Aa, Cry8Ba and Cry39ORF2 toxins, respectively. This novel 3a3b3d type strain, B. thuringiensis subsp. mogi, can be used as a good resource for studying unknown mosquitocidal cry genes.

From our previous studies in a farm in Songcheon, Andong where a series of crops was cultivated in 2008 and 2009, occurrence patterns of Riptortus pedestris (Fabricius) (Hemiptera: Alydidae) and its egg parasitism by Ooencyrtus nezarae Ishii (Hymenoptera: Encyrtidae) and Gryon japonicum (Ashmead) (Hymenoptera: Scelionidae) were reported. With an objective to verify the trend of the occurrence pattern, a year long monitoring of R. pedestris and its egg parasitism was continued in 2010 in the same location where barley, sesame, and soybean were cultivated in series. We placed four aggregation pheromone traps added with 50 refrigerated eggs of R. pedestris each along the perimeter of the field from 11 April to 31 October. Weekly occurrence patterns of R. pedestris and its parasitism in 2010 were generally similar to the patterns of previous years. Riptortus pedestris population first appeared in the last week of April, peaked after the third week of August, and declined in October. Parasitism by G. japonicum was recorded up to 64% in July, 2010 which was much higher than previous years. This study verifies that G. japonicum is the first colonizer that appears as early as May and remains active until September. Ooencyrtus nezarae, however, starts to occur late from the last week of August and exist in the field until October.

Phenotypic traits (physiological characteristics and somatic incompatibility) and genotypic traits (target region amplification polymorphism TRAP) were used to survey the diversity in Chinese Auricularia auricula systematically, which consisted of 32 main cultivated strains. The 27 important and stable physiological indexes were evaluated; somatic incompatibility test (SIT) reaction was described from three aspects: type, pigment, and intensity while intensity clustering alone revealed the phenotypic diversity among the 32 strains;16 pairs of TRAP primer combinations produced 535 unambiguous and reproducible DNA fragments, of these 524 (97.9%) were polymorphic. The phylogenetic trees were constructed by Unweighted Pair-group Method with Arithmetic Averages (UPGMA), which distributed the test strains into four to six major groups respectively. The principal coordinate analysis (PCO) of the three methods (physiological characteristics, SIT intensity and TRAP) exhibited highly similar clustering patterns, revealing that all the test strains can be divided into three groups considered significantly correlated with geographical regions. Results revealed the occurrence of relatively low diversity of A. auricula in the study. The cultivated strains in the same region are more similar physiologically and some strains are suspected to be synonymous. This study suggests that the value for estimating diversity are represented by TRAP＞SIT reaction intensity＞physiological characteristics in A. auricula, and PCO analysis can provided more effective and visible information than the UPGMA clustering dendrogram. Our finding will facilitate future germplasm resources management and breeding program of A. auricula in China.

Rice black-streaked dwarf virus (RBSDV), a member of the genus Fijivirus within the family Reoviridae, is the causative agent of maize rough dwarf and rice black-streaked dwarf diseases, both of which can lead to severe yield losses in east Asia. Although molecular approaches such as RT-PCR have potential for detection and diagnosis of this virus infections, their impact on high throughput certification is still limited. Therefore, the development of an antibody-based assay for rapid and effective diagnosis of RBSDV is preferable. In this study, we collected RBSDV from rice with rough dwarf disease and its complete nucleotide sequences of 10 genomic segments encoding 12 non-overlapping ORFs were determined. Among 12 ORFs, ORF1, 2 and 12 showed high level of similarities with the RdRp, major core protein and major outer shell protein, respectively. These ORFs were expressed as polyhedrin fusion protein or full-length soluble protein using baculovirus expression system for the preparation of specific antibody against RBSDV, which could be useful for the detection and diagnosis of this virus.

We isolated two baculoviruses, Spodoptera litura granulovirus (SlGV) and S. litura nucleopolyhedrovirus (SlNPV) in the dead larvae of S. litura. The granule of SlGV were ovoidal shape with an approximate measure of 240-340 nm×140-180 nm, and each granule contained one single rod-shape virion with a mean size of 180-200 nm×20-40 nm. Whereas, the polyhedra of SlNPV were irregular in shape with a approximate diameter of 1.0-1.5 ㎛, and numerous virions comprised of the multinucleocapsid were contained in each polyhedra. The major component of occlusion bodies produced by SlGV and SlNPV were about 29 and 30 kDa, respectively. When the phylogenic relationship between these viruses were analyzed using the nucleotide sequences of granulin gene from SlGV and polyhedrin gene from SlNPV, they were not closely related to each other. We also found that the two viruses showed similar insecticidal activity against 2nd instar larvae of Spodotera litura in terms of dose-response, but SlGV showed much longer LT50 than that of SlNPV. The two baculoviruses might be cooperatively be applied as biological control agent for the control of S. litura

Autographa californica nucleopolyhedrovirus (AcMNPV) has a large doublestrand DNA genome of approximately 134 kbp and harbors 156 open reading frames (ORFs). To elucidate DNA replication cascade of AcMNPV, we developed a novel baculovirus genome that can be maintained in Escherichia coli as a plasmid and can infect susceptible lepidopteran insect cells. This genome, named bAc-MK, contains a mini-F replicon and a kanamycin resistance marker. Using a convenient Tn7 transposon-based system, pPCS-S, 55 single ORF-truncated mutants were generated by random insertion into bAc-MK genome. These single ORF-truncated mutants were independently transfected into Sf9 cells, 16 of them were found affecting viral replication since they defected in producing polyhedra. Furthermore, to verify the pathogenicity of the single ORF-truncated mutants, the remaining 39 mutants were subjected to bioassay to Spodoptera exigua 3rd instar larvae. Among them, ac9-, ac49-, ac103- and ac105-knockout mutants showed higher mortality compared to that of bAc-MK. These results suggested that these ORFs could be related to pathogenicity of AcMNPV.

The Bacillus thuringiensis strain K4 was isolated from fallen leaves, sampled in a forest region of the city of Mungyeong, Korea. The flagellated vegetative cells of B. thuringiensis strain K4 were agglutinated with the H3 reference antiserum and further, agglutinated with 3b and 3d monospecific antisera but non-reactive for 3c and 3e factor sera. These results create a new serogroup with flagellar antigenic structure of 3a3b3d, designated serovar mogi. The strain K4 showed high activity against dipteran larvae, Anopheles sinensis and Culex pipiens pallens while no lepidopteran toxicity. It produced a single ovoidal-shaped parasporal crystal whose SDS-PAGE protein profile consisted of several bands ranging from 75 to 30 kDa. Through the protein identification by nano-LC-ESI-IT MS analysis, the putative peptides of Cry19Ba, Cry40ORF2, Cry27Aa and Cry20Aa were detected. In contrast to the plasmid profile of B. thuringiensis H3 serotype strains, the strain K4 contained only a large plasmid (~100 kb) and we cloned partial cry27Aa, cry19Ba and cry40ORF2 genes from it by thermal asymmetric interlaced PCR. Sequencing analysis showed 87%, 88% and 88% homologous with known cry27Aa, cry19Ba and cry40ORF2 genes, respectively. The new type strain, B. thuringiensis subsp. mogi (H3a3b3d) will be a good resource for new mosquitocidal cry genes.

Entomopathogenic fungi are widely available as biological control agents for controlling insect pests in agriculture and forestry. The fungal culture broth contains various pathogenesis-related components such as blastospores, mycelium and insecticidal enzymes such as chitinase, Pr1- and Pr2-proteases, which have been reported to play an important role in penetrating insect cuticles. In this study, we tried to evaluate the utility of culture broth from Beauveria bassiana SFB-205 to control lepidopteran pests. High level of insecticidal activity correspond to over 90% of mortality were observed when the culture broth of B. bassiana SFB-205 was inoculated to the Spodoptera litura larvae together with the B. thuringiensis K1. The freeze-dried culture broth showed synergistic effects in insecticidal activity against larvae of S. exigua and S. litura when treated with corresponding baculoviruses, SeNPV and SlNPV. Active ingredient of the B. bassiana SFB-205 culture broth was identified to chitinase, which have truncated form by insertional mutation compared to previously reported chitinases.

Bacillus thuringiensis 1-3 (Bt 1-3) which was isolated from a Korean soil sample showed high insecticidal activity against Aedes aegypti as well as Plutella xylostella. The isolate was determined to belong to ssp. aizawai (H7) type by an H antiserum agglutination test and produced bipyramidal-shaped crystal proteins with a molecular weight of 130 kDa. PCR analysis with cry gene specific primers showed that Bt 1-3 contained cry1Aa, cry1Ab, cry1C, cry1D and cry2A gene, differing from spp. aizawai (reference strain) which contains cry1Aa, cry1Ab, cry1C and cry1D. We modified the plasmid capture system (PCS) to clone plasmid from Bt 1-3 through in vitro transposition. Fifty-three clones were acquired and their sizes were approximately 10 kb. Based on the sequence analysis, they were classified according to similarities with four known Bt plasmids, pGI3, pBMB175, pGI1 and pGI2, respectively. One of pGI3-like clones, named as pBt1-3, was fully sequenced and its 20 putative open reading frames (ORFs), Rep-protein, double-strand origin of replication (dso), single-strand origin of replication (sso), have been identified. The structure of pBt1-3 showed high similarity with pGI3 which is one of rolling-circle replication (RCR) group VI family.

Through an application of plasmid capture system (PCS) to Bacillus thuringiensis plasmid DNAs, we acquired 21 polymorphic clones of putative genomic DNA of bacteriophage. The genome size of phage 1-3 (PhBT1-3) was determined to be 46,517 base pairs (bp) with 35.43% G + C content and 83% coding region. Sixty-five putative open reading frames (ORFs) with more than 50 codons were found in the new phage genome. In accordance with this genome finding, the phage particles and its DNA were confirmed from the supernatant of B. thuringiensis 1-3. Morphological characterization and infectivity assay demonstrated that PhBT1-3 belongs to the family Siphoviridae and it showed infectivity to three B. thuringiensis type strains, galleriae, entomocidus, and morrisoni. Based on these results, we screened the existence of phages in B. thuringiensis type strains by PCR with terminase small subunit-specific primers. Ten of 67 type strains showed PCR products and the similarity of those putative amino acids was more than 70%. Furthermore, we verified the existence of various shaped phages from the supernatants of 10 B. thuringiensis type cultures. In conclusion, we characterized a putative genome of phage, PhBT1-3 from B. thuringiensis 1-3, and confirmed the distribution of phages in the group of 67 B. thuringiensis type strains.

In resent year there has been research on benefits of conjugated linoleic acid (CLA) and docosahexaenoic acid (DHA) for human health. The effect of a fat supplement made from seaweeds meal plus palm olein meal (FS) and replacement of concentrate on milk production, and milk fatty acid (FA) profiles of dairy cows fed grass silage based diets was evaluated. Ten Holstein lactating cows were divided into a two groups. The cows in a group were fed concentrate at 40% on TDN basis (control). The cows in another group (Treatment) were supplemented 0.5㎏/day/cow of FS as a substitute for 2㎏/day/cow of concentrate. The medium chain fatty acids and DHA content of FS were 345 ㎎/g DM and 35 ㎎/g DM, respectively. Total DMI, DM digestibility and milk production as well as milk composition did not differ between the two groups. The intake of ether extract was higher (P＜0.01) in Treatment than control group (1.1 ㎏/day/cow vs. 1.3 ㎏/day/cow). The short and medium chain of FA in the milk did not differ between two groups. The trans11C18:1vaccenic acid, cis9trans11CLA and C18:3 concentrations in the milk were higher (P＜0.01) in Treatment than control group(1.88 g/100gFA vs. 1.03 g/100gFA, 0.93 g/100gFA vs. 0.51 g/100gFA and 0.48 g/100gFA vs. 0.48 g/100gFA). However, the C18:2 concentration in the milk was lower (P＜0.05) in Treatment than Control group (1.38 g/100gFA vs.1.17 g/100gFA). There were detected 0.13 g/100gFA of DHA in the milk in Treatment group. Results indicated that addition of the FS has the potential of increasing CLA and DHA in cow's milk.

Forage production and water use efficiency (WUE) of Lucerne were investigated in three varieties at different water availabilities. Forage production decreased with the severity of soil water availability. At 50% field water capacity (FWC), forage production dropped but in two varieties, Algonquin and Longdong, was still high and from 75%FWC to 50%FWC, forage production in Longdong decreased at the least rate. The greatest leaf WUE was observed in Longdong at all soil water availabilities. From 75%FWC to 50%FWC, it increased in Longdong and Xinjiangdaye, but decreased in Algonquin. With the severity of water deficit, δ¹³C value increased in all three varieties. At the same water availability, the greatest value was observed in Longdong. It suggested that moderate water stress can improve WUE in Lucerne. Longdong is to some extent more efficient in water use and may be more drought-tolerant with more steady production at moderate water deficit.

Sprites, elves and blue jets are collectively denominated as the upper atmospheric transient luminous events (TLEs). They are recently discovered optical flashes between active thunderstorms and the ionosphere. In this report, a brief introduction to the most important characteristics of TLEs is given. Since 2001, scientists from the National Cheng Kung University have been performing yearly summer campaigns from various locations in Taiwan. The main achievements of their yearly campaign are presented.

High-quality and high-phytonutrient watermelon fruits have strong market opportunities besides their health related benefits. Hence, investigating quality and nutritional related traits of watermelon genetic resources could provide important baseline data in breeding for increased lycopene content thereby increasing the marketability of watermelon. To this end, we have examined some fruit morphological traits and lycopene content of 105 genetic resources. Seeds, originally obtained from 22+ countries, were obtained from the National Agrobiodiversity Center, Jeonju, South Korea, grown in an experimental field and harvested at a fully mature stage. The size of pistil scar (SPS), the width of stripes (WS), weight of fruit (WF), length of fruit (LF), width of fruit (WIF), the thickness of pericarp (TP), soluble solids content (SSC), fruit shape in longitudinal section, ground color of skin, the intensity of the green color of skin, fruit shape at the apical part, grooving distribution, conspicuousness of stripes, and main color of the flesh were recorded on the field and inside laboratory and the lycopene was measured using spectrophotometric and HPLC methods. Watermelon fruits have shown a diverse morphological characters. Red and pink fleshed fruits dominated in the entire collections. Fruits with higher thickness of rind were found to exhibit less soluble solid content (SSC). Korean origin fruits were characterized by intermediate SSC while the United States of America (USA), Russia (RUS), Tajikistan (TJK), Turkmenistan (TKM), Taiwan (TWN), and Uruguay (URY) originated fruits had the highest SSC. The lycopene content varied between 41.37 and 182.82 ㎍/g, 2.81 and 163.72 ㎍/g, and 3.54 and 255.47 ㎍/g using HPLC, UV-Vis spectrophotometer, and microplate reader spectrophotometer, respectively. Red- and pink-fleshed fruits had the highest levels of lycopene content compared to the yellow- and orange-fleshed. Lycopene content had a significant positive correlation with SSC, however, no correlations were detected between lycopene and other quantitative fruit morphological characters. Our study demonstrated high diversity exists in fruit morphological traits and lycopene content of the germplasm collections which provide beneficial baseline data for a future breeding program and utilization of watermelon germplasm collections in gene banks for the maintenance and improvement of the current levels of production, marketability, and health-related benefit of watermelon fruits.

The purpose of the study is a theoretical and practical justification for building a mechanism for financing health facilities based on publicprivate partnerships from a pension fund in regions with environmental problems. The theoretical background is built on works of local and foreign authors on state and non-state pension provisions issues, pension funds’ assets management. This study provides an analysis of the health status of the population of the Kyzylorda region; it analyzes also the worldwide and Kazakhstan practice of investing pension funds and implementing projects. There has been legislative and methodological framework for financing health projects based on public-private partnerships in Kazakhstan. The scientific methods considered in this study made it possible to develop a mechanism for financial support for the modernization of a healthcare facility using the budget of pension funds. The authors point out possible risks in the implementation of projects in the field of healthcare and make recommendations on the construction a mechanism for financing healthcare facilities in the regions of Kazakhstan with environmental problems. In addition, they underline the key insights of the analysis, which are requisites for identifying the profitability of project for business and social effects for the public. Factors influencing efficacy, effect and implementation risks identified.