Publications by authors named "Fabian H Milla"

Attractants are a powerful tool for pest management. The lack of specific attractants for the South American fruit fly, , a complex of cryptic species of great economic importance in South America, makes it difficult to monitor the pest in the field. The γ-lactone male sex and aggregation pheromones of several species, naturally released in a 7:3 epianastrephin to anastrephin ratio, and a structurally related naturally occurring γ-lactone ((±)-trans-tetrahydroactinidiolide) with gem-dimethyl groups (dimethyl) at C(4), were evaluated as potential attractants of this species.

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The genus (Diptera Tephritidae) includes some of the most important fruit fly pests in the Americas. Here, we studied the gut bacterial community of 3rd instar larvae of sp. 1 through Next Generation Sequencing (lllumina) of the V3-V4 hypervariable region within the 16S rRNA gene.

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The communication and reproduction of insects are driven by chemical sensing. During this process, chemical compounds are transported across the sensillum lymph to the sensory neurons assisted by different types of soluble binding proteins: odorant-binding proteins (OBPs); chemosensory proteins (CSPs); some members of ML-family proteins (MD-2 (myeloid differentiation factor-2)-related Lipid-recognition), also known as NPC2-like proteins. Potential transcripts involved in chemosensing were identified by an in silico analysis of whole-body female and male transcriptomes of the parasitic wasp Diachasmimorpha longicaudata.

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Background: Anastrepha fraterculus is recognized as a quarantine pest in several American countries. This fruit fly species is native to the American continent and distributed throughout tropical and subtropical regions. It has been reported as a complex of cryptic species, and at least eight morphotypes have been described.

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Microbial communities associated to insect species are involved in essential biological functions such as host nutrition, reproduction and survivability. Main factors have been described as modulators of gut bacterial community, such as diet, habit, developmental stage and taxonomy of the host. The present work focuses on the complex changes that gut microbial communities go through when wild insects are introduced to artificial rearing conditions.

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Background: Wolbachia, one of the most abundant taxa of intracellular Alphaproteobacteria, is widespread among arthropods and filarial nematodes. The presence of these maternally inherited bacteria is associated with modifications of host fitness, including a variety of reproductive abnormalities, such as cytoplasmic incompatibility, thelytokous parthenogenesis, host feminization and male-killing. Wolbachia has attracted much interest for its role in biological, ecological and evolutionary processes as well as for its potential use in novel and environmentally-friendly strategies for the control of insect pests and disease vectors including a major agricultural pest, the South American fruit fly, Anastrepha fraterculus Wiedemann (Diptera: Tephritidae).

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Article Synopsis
  • Exposure to plant compounds and juvenile hormone analogues increases male mating success in tephritid fruit flies, particularly in species exhibiting a lek mating system.
  • Female South American fruit flies (Anastrepha fraterculus) prefer to mate with males exposed to guava fruit volatiles or treated with methoprene, but only the former leads to increased fecundity in females.
  • This study provides the first direct evidence that female choice based on male exposure to host odors can result in reproductive benefits, which has implications for understanding mating strategies and managing pest populations.
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Cytogenetics, which is considered a fundamental tool to understand basic genetic and genomic issues of species, has greatly contributed to the description of polymorphisms both at inter- and intra-specific level. In fact, cytogenetics was one of the first approaches used to propose Anastrepha fraterculus (Diptera: Tephritidae) as a complex of cryptic species. Different morphological variants of sex chromosomes have been reported among Argentinean populations of Anastrepha fraterculus.

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