Publications by authors named "Alan Soffan"

Since introduced from West Africa at 40 years ago, Faust. (Coleoptera: Curculionidae) is still the main pollinator agent of oil palm plantation in Indonesia until now. Unfortunately, the success rate of pollination in various regions in Indonesia is relatively different, for example in Sumatra and Kalimantan.

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Tea Mosquito Bug (TMB), (Hemiptera: Miridae) is one of the major pest infesting tea and cocoa plantations worldwide. Developing olfaction-based control methods was urges as an alternative to commonly used but non-environmental friendly chemical pesticides. However, the molecular mechanisms underlying TMB reception mechanism are still lacking.

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The increasing production of banana is hampered by the spread of banana plant diseases, one of which is caused by a group of bacteria, including those of causing wilt diseases. In Indonesia, blood disease is one of the important banana wilt diseases since loss due to the infection can reach up to 50%. There are numerous publications on the pathogen identification causing banana blood disease based on the molecular approach, however to date, no detailed molecular data are available for the interaction of banana host plant against the pathogen.

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Banana bunchy top disease (BBT) is one of the most economically serious viral diseases of banana caused by banana bunchy top virus (BBTV: Nanoviridae: Babuvirus). BBTV is a circular, ssDNA virus which is suitable in the phloem tissue and currently only being transmitted by the banana aphid () in a persistent, non-propagative, circulative manner. Interaction of BBTV and banana aphid had been studied in several ways, such as transmission and translocation of BBTV inside the banana aphid body at cellular level.

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Odorant coreceptor (Orco) represents one of the essential genes in the insect olfactory system, which facilitates signal transduction and heterodimerization with different odorant receptors (Ors) in the insect antennal dendritic membrane. Evolutionary analysis by detecting positive selection is important to examine the functional flexibility of Orco that potentially supports insect survival. The maximum likelihood codon substitution model was applied using CODEML program as implemented in PAML ver 4.

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The red palm weevil (RPW, Rhynchophorus ferrugineus), one of the most widespread of all invasive insect pest species, is a major cause of severe damage to economically important palm trees. RPW exhibits behaviors very similar to those of its sympatric species, the Asian palm weevil (R. vulneratus), which is restricted geographically to the southern part of Southeast Asia.

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Background: The Red Palm Weevil (RPW) Rhynchophorus ferrugineus (Oliver) is one of the most damaging invasive insect species in the world. This weevil is highly specialized to thrive in adverse desert climates, and it causes major economic losses due to its effects on palm trees around the world. RPWs locate palm trees by means of plant volatile cues and use an aggregation pheromone to coordinate a mass-attack.

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Background: Insects use pheromones, chemical signals that underlie all animal behaviors, for communication and for attracting mates. Synthetic pheromones are widely used in pest control strategies because they are environmentally safe. The production of insect pheromones in transgenic plants, which could be more economical and effective in producing isomerically pure compounds, has recently been successfully demonstrated.

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