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The spotted or bean pod borer, Maruca vitrata Fabricius is an important pest of major pulses and vegetable legumes in India and are mostly managed by chemical pesticides. Exploring other alternative management tools, here, we carried out on the availability of parasitoids and its genetic variation to control this major pest. Totally, four larval parasitoids viz., Bassus sp., Trathala flavoorbitalis Cameron, Phanerotoma hendecasisella Cameron and an undetermined Braconid wasp were recorded on M. vitrata larva. The occurrence of P. hendecasisella was reported for the first time from Tamil Nadu, India. The Bassus sp. was found to be dominant with the parasitism of 3.0 to 12.7% in different pulses and total parasitism of four parasitoids was maximum in pigeonpea (16.1%). Total parasitism had a positive relationship with number of webbings on cowpea. The larval parasitoids Bassus sp. and braconid wasp (undetermined) yielded specific fragments (~800 bp) with mitochondrial COI primer. Presence of Wolbachia was confirmed in all four larval parasitoids with the amplicons size between 600 and 650 bp. The results clearly indicate the close proximity of Bassus sp. on M. vitrata than other parasitoids studied, and suggestfor further insights on suitability, mass culturing and development for sustainable management of this insect pest. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Legume pod borer Maruca vitrata (Fabricius) is a serious pest in most common pulses affecting their yield. In the present investigation, genetic diversity among larval population of Maruca vitrata from five locations of India was assessed using 23 RAPD primes and 6 SSR primers. RAPD primers produced 364 (98.9% polymorphism) polymorphic alleles with the mean number of 18.2 alleles/primer while SSR primers produced 45 polymorphic alleles with 68% polymorphism. The mean number of alleles detected per primer ranged from 4 to 46 and 5 to 12 with RAPD and SSR primers, respectively in different larval samples. Dendrogram constructed using similarity index values for RAPD and SSR primers differentiated the larval samples. In all three types of Maruca larval samples, Polymorphism information content (PIC) value observed for RAPD primers ranged from 0.019 (OPC 08) to 0.375 (OPAF 12). Similarly, SSR primers showed PIC value of 0.061 (C32008E) to 0.781 (C3393E,1) irrespective of larval samples. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Maruca vitrata (Fabricius), commonly known as legume pod borer, is a serious pest in pulses affecting the yield. Liberal use of chemical insecticides to control has resulted in diverse array of insect detoxification enzymes produced by the pest to metabolize these toxic chemicals and develop resistance. Here, we studied the gut hydrolytic enzymes of M. vitrata up on its field exposure to different insecticides in order to have an idea about level of adaptation. Among the larval samples collected from different pulses, the maximum protein content of 547.14 mg was recorded per g of gut sample of legume pod borer, M. vitrata collected from green gram. Total trypsin activity was insignificant in gut samples of larvae collected from different samples. The total chymotrypsin and aminopeptidase activities were found maximum in cowpea of 0.5655 and 0.1184 mM/mL/min/g, respectively. Whereas, the maximum GST activity in lablab populations of M. vitrata (2.3335 mM/mL/min/g). The specific activity of trypsin was maximum in Maruca larval populations from lablab (0.0050 nM/mL/min/mg of protein) and red gram or pigeonpea (0.0049 nM/mL/min/mg of protein) and chymotrypsin activity in cowpea (0.0098 nM/mL/min/mg of protein). The larval samples collected from lablab (0.0052 nM/mL/min/mg of protein) and cowpea (0.0037 nM/mL/min/mg of protein) showed the maximum specific activity of aminopeptidase. Maximum specific GST activity of 0.0325 and 0.0294 nM/mL/min/mg of protein was recorded in larvae collected from lablab and red gram, respectively. Larval samples from black gram ranked the last with respect to the activity of gut enzymes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]