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Funding Information: Royal Entomological Society; UKRI Natural Environment Research Council, Grant/Award Number: NE/V006533/1; Rural & Environment Science & Analytical Services Division of the Scottish Government; ; Alexander von Humboldt Foundation; Department of Agriculture, Environment & Rural Affairs; Center for Environmental and Sustainability Research; FCT/MCTES, Grant/Award Number: UID/AMB/04085/2020; UKRI Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council, Grant/Award Number: BBS/E/C/000J0200; UKRI Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council Norwich Research Park Biosciences Doctoral Training Partnership, Grant/Award Number: BB/M011216/1; UKRI Natural Environment Research Council, Grant/Award Number: NE/N014472/2 Funding information Funding Information: This study was approved by the University of Cambridge Psychology Research Ethics Committee (permit number PRE.2020.103). The exercise was funded by the Royal Entomological Society (RES). Helen E. Roy acknowledges support from UK Natural Environment Research Council grant NE/V006533/1 GLobal Insect Threat‐Response Synthesis (GLiTRS): a comprehensive and predictive assessment of the pattern and consequences of insect declines. Lorna J. Cole's time was funded by the Rural & Environment Science & Analytical Services Division of the Scottish Government. Daniel J. Leybourne was supported by the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation through a postdoctoral research fellowship. Sajidha Mohammed thanks the RES for providing 1‐year of free student membership which allowed them to contribute to the workshop. Archie K. Murchie was supported by the Agri‐Food & Biosciences Institute which is sponsored by the Department of Agriculture, Environment & Rural Affairs (NI). Maria‐Rosa Paiva receives support from CENSE (Center for Environmental and Sustainability Research), which is financed by national funds from FCT/MCTES (UID/AMB/04085/2020). Chris R. Shortall was supported by the Rothamsted Insect Survey, a National Capability, which is funded by the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council under the Core Capability Grant BBS/E/C/000J0200. Christopher D. Williams thanks the Faculty of Science at Liverpool John Moores University for funding attendance at various Royal Entomological Society meetings. Natalia B. Zielonka was supported by the UKRI Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council Norwich Research Park Biosciences Doctoral Training Partnership (BB/M011216/1). Lynn V. Dicks's time was funded by the Natural Environment Research Council (grant code: NE/N014472/2). For the purpose of Open Access, the authors have applied a CC BY public copyright licence to any author accepted manuscript version arising from this submission. We sincerely thank all survey participants for contributing their ideas, knowledge and time. The authors thank four anonymous reviewers, Manu Saunders and Raphael Didham for their comments on an earlier version of the manuscript. For one of our co‐authors and workshop participants, Professor Simon Leather Hon. FRES, this is a posthumous publication. We dedicate this paper to him, as a heartfelt tribute to his incredible contributions to entomological research, higher education and public engagement. Publisher Copyright: © 2023 The Authors. Insect Conservation and Diversity published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd on behalf of Royal Entomological Society. Entomology is key to understanding terrestrial and freshwater ecosystems at a time of unprecedented anthropogenic environmental change and offers substantial untapped potential to benefit humanity in a variety of ways, from improving agricultural practices to managing vector-borne diseases and inspiring technological advances. We identified high priority challenges for entomology using an inclusive, open, and democratic four-stage prioritisation approach, conducted among the membership and affiliates (hereafter ‘members’) of the UK-based Royal Entomological Society (RES). A list of 710 challenges was gathered from 189 RES members. Thematic analysis was used to group suggestions, followed by an online vote to determine initial priorities, which were subsequently ranked during an online workshop involving 37 participants. The outcome was a set of 61 priority challenges within four groupings of related themes: (i) ‘Fundamental Research’ (themes: Taxonomy, ‘Blue Skies’ [defined as research ideas without immediate practical application], Methods and Techniques); (ii) ‘Anthropogenic Impacts and Conservation’ (themes: Anthropogenic Impacts, Conservation Options); (iii) ‘Uses, Ecosystem Services and Disservices’ (themes: Ecosystem Benefits, Technology and Resources [use of insects as a resource, or as inspiration], Pests); (iv) ‘Collaboration, Engagement and Training’ (themes: Knowledge Access, Training and Collaboration, Societal Engagement). Priority challenges encompass research questions, funding objectives, new technologies, and priorities for outreach and engagement. Examples include training taxonomists, establishing a global network of insect monitoring sites, understanding the extent of insect declines, exploring roles of cultivated insects in food supply chains, and connecting professional with amateur entomologists. Responses to different challenges could be led by amateur and professional entomologists, at all career stages. Overall, the challenges provide a diverse array of options to inspire and initiate entomological activities and reveal the potential of entomology to contribute to addressing global challenges related to human health and well-being, and environmental change. publishersversion published

There are numerous examples of phenological shifts that are recognized both as indicators of climate change and drivers of ecosystem change. A pressing challenge is to understand the causal mechanisms by which climate affects phenology. We combined annual population census data and individual longitudinal data (1992���2018) on grey seals, Halicheorus grypus, to quantify the relationship between pupping season phenology and sea surface temperature. A temperature increase of 2��C was associated with a pupping season advance of approximately seven days at the population level. However, we found that maternal age, rather than sea temperature, accounted for changes in pupping date by individuals. Warmer years were associated with an older average age of mothers, allowing us to explain phenological observations in terms of a changing population age structure. Finally, we developed a matrix population model to test whether our observations were consistent with changes to the stable age distribution. This could not fully account for observed phenological shift, strongly suggesting transient modification of population age structure, for example due to immigration. We demonstrate a novel mechanism for phenological shifts under climate change in long-lived, age- or stage-structured species with broad implications for dynamics and resilience, as well as population management.

Graphical abstract, Highlights • Metarhizium brunneum is highly pathogenic to Aedes aegypti larvae. • Metarhizium blastospores more virulent than conidia. • Mosquito predator, Toxorhynchites brevipalpis, is more tolerant than Aedes to Metarhizium. • Metarhizium and Toxorhynchites combination gives excellent control of Aedes larvae. • Metarhizium risk to predator is reduced when inoculum is used at low concentrations., Mosquitoes transmit several diseases, which are of global significance (malaria, dengue, yellow fever, Zika). The geographic range of mosquitoes is increasing due to climate change, tourism and trade. Both conidial and blastospore formulations of the entomopathogenic fungus, Metarhizium brunneum ARSEF 4556, are being investigated as mosquito larvicides. However, concerns have been raised over possible non-target impacts to arthropod mosquito predators such as larvae of Toxorhynchites brevipalpis which feed on larvae of mosquito vector species. Laboratory-based, small container bioassays showed, that T. bevipalpis larvae are susceptible to relatively high concentrations (i.e. ≥107 spores ml−1) of inoculum with blastospores being significantly more virulent than conidia. At lower concentrations (e.g.

Entomopathogenic fungi are potential biological control agents of mosquitoes. Our group observed that not all mosquitoes were equally susceptible to fungal infection and observed significant differences in virulence of different spore types. Conidiospores and blastospores were tested against Culex quinquefasciatus larvae. Blastospores are normally considered more virulent than conidia as they form germ tubes and penetrate the host integument more rapidly than conidia. However, when tested against Cx. quinquefasciatus, blastospores were less virulent than conidia. This host-fungus interaction was studied by optical, electron and atomic force microscopy (AFM). Furthermore, host immune responses and specific gene expression were investigated. Metarhizium brunneum (formerly M. anisopliae) ARSEF 4556 blastospores did not readily adhere to Culex larval integument and the main route of infection was through the gut. Adhesion forces between blastospores and Culex cuticle were significantly lower than for other insects. Larvae challenged with blastospores showed enhanced immune responses, with increased levels of phenoloxidase, glutathione-S-transferase, esterase, superoxide dismutase and lipid peroxidase activity. Interestingly, M. brunneum pathogenicity/stress-related genes were all down-regulated in blastospores exposed to Culex. Conversely, when conidia were exposed to Culex, the pathogenicity genes involved in adhesion or cuticle degradation were up-regulated. Delayed host mortality following blastospore infection of Culex was probably due to lower adhesion rates of blastospores to the cuticle and enhanced host immune responses deployed to counter infection. The results here show that subtle differences in host-pathogen interactions can be responsible for significant changes in virulence when comparing mosquito species, having important consequences for biological control strategies and the understanding of pathogenicity processes.

International audience; Background: Organisms typically face infection by diverse pathogens, and hosts are thought to have developed specific responses to each type of pathogen they encounter. The advent of transcriptomics now makes it possible to test this hypothesis and compare host gene expression responses to multiple pathogens at a genome-wide scale. Here, we performed a meta-analysis of multiple published and new transcriptomes using a newly developed bioinformatics approach that filters genes based on their expression profile across datasets. Thereby, we identified common and unique molecular responses of a model host species, the honey bee (Apis mellifera), to its major pathogens and parasites: the Microsporidia Nosema apis and Nosema ceranae, RNA viruses, and the ectoparasitic mite Varroa destructor, which transmits viruses. Results: We identified a common suite of genes and conserved molecular pathways that respond to all investigated pathogens, a result that suggests a commonality in response mechanisms to diverse pathogens. We found that genes differentially expressed after infection exhibit a higher evolutionary rate than non-differentially expressed genes. Using our new bioinformatics approach, we unveiled additional pathogen-specific responses of honey bees; we found that apoptosis appeared to be an important response following microsporidian infection, while genes from the immune signalling pathways, Toll and Imd, were differentially expressed after Varroa/virus infection. Finally, we applied our bioinformatics approach and generated a gene co-expression network to identify highly connected (hub) genes that may represent important mediators and regulators of anti-pathogen responses.Conclusions: Our meta-analysis generated a comprehensive overview of the host metabolic and other biological processes that mediate interactions between insects and their pathogens. We identified key host genes and pathways that respond to phylogenetically diverse pathogens, representing an important source for future functional studies as well as offering new routes to identify or generate pathogen resilient honey bee stocks. The statistical and bioinformatics approaches that were developed for this study are broadly applicable to synthesize information across transcriptomic datasets. These approaches will likely have utility in addressing a variety of biological questions.

BACKGROUND: Birt-Hogg-Dubé syndrome (BHD) is a dominantly inherited familial cancer syndrome characterised by the development of benign skin fibrofolliculomas, multiple lung and kidney cysts, spontaneous pneumothorax and susceptibility to renal cell carcinoma. BHD is caused by mutations in the gene encoding Folliculin (FLCN). Little is known about what FLCN does in a healthy individual and how best to treat those with BHD. As a first approach to developing a vertebrate model for BHD we aimed to identify the temporal and spatial expression of flcn transcripts in the developing zebrafish embryo. To gain insights into the function of flcn in a whole organism system we generated a loss of function model of flcn by the use of morpholino knockdown in zebrafish. RESULTS: flcn is expressed broadly and upregulated in the fin bud, somites, eye and proliferative regions of the brain of the Long-pec stage zebrafish embryos. Together with knockdown phenotypes, expression analysis suggest involvement of flcn in zebrafish embryonic brain development. We have utilised the zFucci system, an in vivo, whole organism cell cycle assay to study the potential role of flcn in brain development. We found that at the 18 somite stage there was a significant drop in cells in the S-M phase of the cell cycle in flcn morpholino injected embryos with a corresponding increase of cells in the G1 phase. This was particularly evident in the brain, retina and somites of the embryo. Timelapse analysis of the head region of flcn morpholino injected and mismatch control embryos shows the temporal dynamics of cell cycle misregulation during development. CONCLUSIONS: In conclusion we show that zebrafish flcn is expressed in a non-uniform manner and is likely required for the maintenance of correct cell cycle regulation during embryonic development. We demonstrate the utilisation of the zFucci system in testing the role of flcn in cell proliferation and suggest a function for flcn in regulating cell proliferation in vertebrate embryonic brain development.