Sentences with phrase «of mealybugs»

We hear that there is looming banana crisis in Costa Rica — the world's 2nd leading exporter of the fruit — as this year's crop is being threatened by an infestation of mealybugs, scale insects, and fungal infection.

«An Interdependent Metabolic Patchwork in the Nested Symbiosis of Mealybugs.»

Not exact matches

Many sap - eating insects rely on helpful bacteria, or symbionts, to make amino acids, but none of them has the citrus mealybug's nested microbes.

The mealybug uses its two partners to supplement its monotonous diet of plant sap.

Unfortunately, the mealybug is equally capable of traveling via a human vector — and it is now devastating the cassava (aka manioc or yucca) crop on some 200,000 hectares in Thailand, where some 60 percent of global exports (worth $ 1.5 billion) are grown, according to the International Center for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT), a Colombia - based research nonprofit focused on reducing hunger and poverty via sustainable agriculture.

The cassava mealybug (Phenacoccus manihoti) thrives on the plant's starchy root — a staple of many diets worldwide.

With just 121 protein - coding genes, the diminutive Tremblaya princeps, a symbiotic bacterium that lives inside specialized cells of the sap - eating mealybug, has the smallest known genome of any cellular organism on the planet.

Together the three organisms form a complex, co-dependent web; the nested bacteria complement each other and their insect host, creating a genetic patchwork of enzymes needed to produce amino acids lacking in the mealybugs» sap diet.

The mealybug genome appears to include genes from other varieties of bacteria distinct from Tremblaya and Moranella, and the two endosymbiont bacteria may use the protein products of these genes to manufacture nutrients and to make their membranes.

The citrus mealybug (main image) needs its nested bacterial buddies (inset, bigger blue blobs = Tremblaya red smaller ones = Moranella) to make the most of its meals.

Mealybugs are the Russian nesting dolls of the animal world.

Microbiologist John McCutcheon of the University of Montana, Missoula, was intrigued by the citrus mealybug's (Planococcus citri's) unique setup.