Chemosensory systems play an important role in insect behavior, and some key associated genes have potential as novel targets for pest control. Cacopsylla chinensis is an oligophagous pest and has become one of the main pests of pear trees, but little is known about the molecular-level means by which it locates its hosts. In this study, we assembled the head transcriptome of C. chinensis using Illumina sequencing, and 63,052 Unigenes were identified. A total of 36 candidate chemosensory genes were identified, including five different families: 12 odorant binding proteins (OBPs), 11 chemosensory proteins (CSPs), 7 odorant receptors (ORs), 4 ionotropic receptors (IRs), and 2 gustatory receptors (GRs). The number of chemosensory gene families is consistent with that found in other Hemipteran species, indicating that our approach successfully obtained the chemosensory genes of C. chinensis. The tissue expression of all genes using quantitative real-time PCR (qRT-PCR) found that some genes displayed male head, female head, or nymph-biased specific/expression. Our results enrich the gene inventory of C. chinensis and provide valuable resources for the analysis of the functions of some key genes. This will help in developing molecular targets for disrupting feeding behavior in C. chinensis.
To analyze the structural characteristics of zooplankton functional groups (ZFGs) and their correlation with environmental physicochemical factors in the Chaohu Lake Basin, water samples were collected from October 2019 to July 2020, and the zooplankton species and ZFGs were investigated. A total of 250 species, including 88 protozoa, 115 rotifers, 28 cladocerans, and 19 copepod species, were detected and divided into 16 ZFGs. The ZFGs exhibited obvious spatiotemporal heterogeneity. ZFGs in the Chaohu Lake were notably different from those in rivers and were different between the rivers. In the ecosystem, network analysis showed that protozoan algae/protozoan bacteria (PA/PB), rotifer particle filter (RF), and rotifer small predator (RSG) were important in the spring, summer, and autumn that and small zooplankton filter (SCF) was important in spring, autumn, and winter, while the importance of other ZFGs changed with seasons. Redundancy analysis showed that the environmental factors with a strong correlation between the ZFG compositions differed in each season. Different ZFGs exhibited different correlations with environmental factors. This study showed that ZFGs were closely related to environmental factors and that functional traits can reflect responses to changes in the water environment.
9 January 2024 in Environmental Science and Pollution Research