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The Ag Data Commons is migrating

The Ag Data Commons is migrating to a new institutional portal on Figshare. The current system is available for search and download only. The new platform is open for submission with assistance from Ag Data Commons curators. Please contact NAL-ADC-Curator@usda.gov, if you need to publish or update your datasets.

Data from: Honeydew associated with four common crop aphid species increases longevity of the parasitoid wasp, Bracon cephi (Hymenoptera: Braconidae)

    Abstract from published manuscript: The absence of sugar resources can be an important factor in limiting the success of parasitoids as biological control agents. Restoring vegetation complexity within agricultural landscapes has thus become a major focus of conservation biological control efforts, with a traditional emphasis on nectar resources. Aphid honeydew is also an important source of sugars that is infrequently considered. We carried out a laboratory experiment to examine the potential effects of honeydew from six different aphid species by crop species combinations on the longevity of Bracon cephi Gahan (Hymenoptera: Braconidae), the most important biological control of the wheat stem sawfly, Cephus cinctus Norton (Hymenoptera: Cephidae), a major pest of wheat in the northern Great Plains of North America. The benefits of honeydew for parasitoid longevity varied significantly among different aphid and crop species, illustrating the complexity of these interactions. However, honeydew produced by four aphid species commonly found in wheat, pea, and canola crops significantly increased the longevity (by two- to threefold) of the parasitoid. The study suggests that honeydew provisioning could be an important mechanism underlying the benefits of crop diversification to support biological control that merits further research.

    De novo transcriptome assembly of Schizaphis gramium Biotype I feeding on wheat

      Transcriptome was generated from pooled adult aphids that were fed on wheat plants containing the Dn4 and DN7 resistance gene as well as Yuma plants containing no resistant genes (Dn0). The assembly was generated using Trinity. All assembled transcripts, including those that were not predicted to encode ORFs, are included along with their corresponding functional annotations from Trinotate.

      Data from: Comparative analysis of genome sequences from four strains of the Buchnera aphidicola Mp endosymbiont of the green peach aphid, Myzus persicae

        Myzus persicae, the green peach aphid, is a polyphagous herbivore that feeds on hundreds of species of mostly dicot crop plants. Like other phloem-feeding aphids, M. persicae rely on the endosymbiotic bacterium, Buchnera aphidicola (Buchnera Mp), for biosynthesis of essential amino acids and other nutrients that are not sufficiently abundant in their phloem sap diet. To determine whether the endosymbiotic bacteria of M. persicae could play a role in tobacco adaptation, the Buchnera Mp genomes from two tobacco-adapted and two non-tobacco M. persicae lineages are sequenced.

        Divergence in host specificity and genetics among populations of Aphelinus certus

          These are data on variation in host specificity and genetics among 16 populations of an aphid parasitoid, *Aphelinus certus*, 15 from Asia and one from North America. Host range was the same for all the parasitoid populations, but levels of parasitism varied among aphid species, suggesting adaptation to locally abundant aphids. Differences in host specificity did not correlate with geographical distances among parasitoid populations, suggesting that local adaption is mosaic rather than clinal, with a spatial scale of less than 50 kilometers. Analysis of reduced representation libraries for each population showed genetic differentiation among them. Differences in host specificity correlated with genetic distances among the parasitoid populations.

          Annotations of Unigenes Assembled from Schizaphis graminum and Sipha flava

            Transcriptomes were assembled de novo from pools of adult aphids that were feeding on sorghum and switchgrass. Reads from all replicates were pooled, normalized in silico to 25X coverage, and assembled using Trinity. Only the most abundant isoform for each unigene was retained for annotation and unigenes with transcripts per million mapped reads (TPM) less than 0.5 were removed from the dataset. The remaining unigenes were annotated using Trinotate with BLASTP comparisons against the Swiss-Prot/UniProt database. In addition, Pfam-A assignments were computed using hmmer, signal peptide predictions were performed using SignalP, and transmembrane domain predictions were performed using tmHMM. Gene ontology (GO assignments) were retrieved from Trinotate using the highest scoring BLASTp matches as queries.

            Data from: Metabolic Coevolution in the Bacterial Symbiosis of Whiteflies and Related Plant Sap-Feeding Insects

              Genomic decay is a common feature of intracellular bacteria that have entered into symbiosis with plant sap-feeding insects. This study of the whitefly Bemisia tabaci and two bacteria (Portiera aleyrodidarum and Hamiltonella defensa) cohoused in each host cell investigated whether the decay of Portiera metabolism genes is complemented by host and Hamiltonella genes, and compared the metabolic traits of the whitefly symbiosis with other sap-feeding insects (aphids, psyllids, and mealybugs).

              Insect Images: The Source for Entomology Photos

                A joint project of The University of Georgia - Warnell School of Forestry and Natural Resources, College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences - Department of Entomology, Center for Invasive Species and Ecosystem Health, Georgia Museum of Natural History, The Entomology Society of America and USDA Identification Technology Program, [Insect Images](https://www.insectimages.org/) image categories include: Insect Orders: Hymenoptera; Coleoptera; Hemiptera; Lepidoptera; Blattodea; Odonata; Dermaptera; Diptera; Orthoptera; Neuroptera; Phthiraptera; Mantodea; Thysanura; Isoptera; Thysanoptera; Phasmatoptera; and Related Organisms.

                Aphidnet

                  AphID includes a key to the 66 most polyphagous and cosmopolitan aphid species.