Search

Temperature strongly impacts the rates of physiological and biochemical processes, which in turn can determine the survival and population size of insects. At low temperatures performance is limited, however, cold tolerance and performance at low temperature can be improved after short- or long-term acclimation in many insect species. To understand mechanisms underlying acclimation, we sequenced and compared the transcriptome of the blowfly Chrysomya megacephala under rapid cold hardening (RCH) and long-term cold acclimation (LCA) conditions. The RCH response was dominated by genes related to immune response, spliceosome, and protein processing in endoplasmic reticulum with up-regulation during recovery from RCH. In contrast, LCA was associated with genes related to carbohydrate metabolism and cytoskeleton branching and stabilizing. Meanwhile, mRNA levels of genes related to glycerophospholipid metabolism, and some heat shock proteins (Hsps) were collectively up-regulated by both RCH and LCA. There were more genes and pathway adjustments associated with LCA than RCH. Overall, the transcriptome data provide basic information of molecular mechanisms underpinning the RCH and LCA response. The partly independent molecular responses to RCH and LCA suggest that several avenues for manipulating cold performance exist and RCH might be more effective as it only triggers fewer genes and affects the general metabolisms less. These observations provide some appropriate methods to improve cold tolerance of C. megacephala, and hold promise for developing an extended use of mass-reared C. megacephala with better cold performance as a pollinator of crops at low temperatures.

Insects employ various types of gustatory receptors (GRs) to identify nutrient-rich food and avoid toxic substances. The larval gustatory system is the critical checkpoint for food acceptance or rejection. As a specialist herbivore, the larvae of Bactrocera minax feed only on unripe citrus fruits. However, how larvae use GRs to check and adapt to the secondary metabolites in unripe citrus fruits remains unknown. In this study, we first performed developmental expression profiles showing that most BminGRs genes were highly expressed in 1st and 2nd instar larvae and that tissue-specific expression indicated high expression of most BminGRs genes in the mouthparts of 2nd instar larvae. Furthermore, we found that silencing BminGR59f by RNA interference (RNAi) affected the growth of 2nd instar B. minax larvae. Hesperidin and naringin were screened as ligands of BminGR59f via RNAi and cell calcium imaging, and the combination of these two flavones increased the body weight of larvae. In summary, we identified a novel gustatory perception pattern in B. minax for detecting hesperidin and naringin, which boosted the growth of B. minax larvae. These results shed light on how specialist herbivores detect and adapt to host metabolites in adverse environments depending on larval GRs.

Aiming at the application of fruit and vegetables precooling, an innovative wet precooling system with ice slurry as a cooling medium was proposed. A small wet precooling room performance test platform was built. With apples as the precooling subject, the temperature and relative humidity in precooling room, the cooling rate and weight loss of apples as indexes, by changing the weight concentration of ice slurry additives (0%-8%), the ice fraction (0%-10%) and the ice slurry flow rate (50-150 L h−1), the precooling experiments were carried out. The results showed that increasing the concentration of ice slurry additives (NaCl) could effectively reduce the equilibrium temperature in precooling room. For the ice slurry solution with the additive concentrations of 0%, 2%, 4%, 6% and 8%, the equilibrium temperature in precooling room were 4.3°C, 1.7°C, 0.4°C, 0.0°C and -0.7°C, respectively. When the ice fractions increased from 0% to 10%, the precooling time decreased from 165 min to 96 min, and the weight loss decreased from 2.11% to 0.42%. When the ice slurry flow rate increased, the relative humidity in precooling room increased, and the cooling rate of apples firstly increased rapidly and then leveled off. When the flow rate reached 100 L h−1, the relative humidity remained above 90%. The precooling system has a strong applicability, easy to realize the stable environment of low temperature and high relative humidity (0°C, >90%), so it has a large application space in the precooling and fresh-keeping of fruit and vegetables.

Free-standing reduced graphene oxide (rGO) papers were prepared by chemical reduction, thermal reduction and combined chemical-thermal reduction, respectively. Four-point probe and nanoindentation experiments were conducted to investigate the electrical and mechanical properties of rGO papers. The rGO paper prepared by soaking in L-ascorbic acid and thermal annealing in argon at 1000 °C (labeled rGO-AsA-T) showed superior electrical and mechanical properties when compared with rGO papers prepared merely by chemical reduction or thermal reduction. The as-prepared rGO-AsA-T paper exhibited an electrical conductivity of 5.7 × 104 S/m, showing an increase of 90% compared to that in the thermally annealed rGO paper and nearly 40 times that of rGO paper reduced by L-ascorbic acid. It was also found that the rGO-AsA-T paper had the lowest elastic modulus of 288 MPa, showing enhanced flexibility. The nearly free voids in rGO-AsA-T paper proved by scanning electron microscopy (SEM) were due to the capillary action in chemical reduction and were significant in improving the electrical conductivity and flexibility of the paper. The rGO-AsA-T paper with high conductivity and flexibility has a promising application in flexible electronics.

Insects entertain intricate and mutualistic relationship with an array of microorganisms, which significantly influence their fitness, ecology and evolution. In recent decades, there has been increasing interest toward studying the effects of microbiome on many host insects (Dipterans, Lepidopterans, and Coleopterans). Studies so far realized indicate that gut microbiome contribute to host nutritional ecology, defense, immunity and lifespan. Bactrocera dorsalis (Tephritidae: Diptera) is a polyphagous fruit fly which attacks a huge variety of fruits and vegetables worldwide and has been placed as a quarantine species by many countries. To investigate the specific functions of the gut endosymbionts, it is a prerequisite to know the composition of gut bacterial communities whose manipulation will help to decipher their ecological relevance. Here, we used the culture-dependent technique to isolate and identify gut bacteria from B. dorsalis at different developmental stages. The results revealed 11 bacterial species from the third instar larvae, 18 and 12 from female and male populations, respectively. These bacteria were assigned to six families, namely, Enterobacteriaceae, Enterococcaceae, Staphylococcaceae, Streptococcaceae, Micrococcaceae and Bacillaceae. Bacterial species from these families were differentially represented in various samples, except Klebsiella oxytoca , Enterobacter cloacae, Pantoea dispers and Enterococcus faecalis that were detected at all developmental stages. Overall, Enterobacteriaceae was the most dominant family in females and third instar larvae accounting for 57.89% and 26.32%, respectively, while Enterococcaceae was dominant in males with 75% of the total bacterial taxa. These results suggest that B. dorsalis possesses a huge variety of cultivable bacteria that could be used to explore their specific functions on host physiology and fitness.

The foam-core sandwich panel is a widely used high-performance structure in a variety of applications, which has been successfully manufactured by liquid composite molding (LCM). During the filling process of LCM, flow-induced defects inevitably occur, like dry spots and voids, particularly in complex structures. In industry, it is pervasive to introduce distributed grooves or holes in foam cores to optimize the resin flow channels, therefore reducing the likelihood of defects. This study aims to experimentally and numerically investigate the effect of grooves and holes on the permeation behavior of the foam-core sandwich panel. The filling process simulation was first performed to characterize the permeation behavior of the foam-core sandwich panel. The simulation results fitted the experimental results very well. This verified simulation method was further used to evaluate the influence of holing or grooving treatment of foam cores on the permeation behavior, which were characterized by flow pressure, flow front, and filling time. Both experimental and numerical results indicated that holing and grooving treatments could improve the filling pattern and the mold filling time. Notably, the effect of grooving treatment on foam cores was more effective in enhancing the impregnation of reinforces.

Simple Summary Nitrogen acquisition strategies mediated by insect symbionts through biological nitrogen fixation (BNF) and nitrogenous waste recycling (NWR) were reviewed and compared in our paper, and a model for nitrogen provisioning in insects was then constructed. In our model, (1) insects acquired nitrogen nutrition from food stuffs directly, and the subprime channels (e.g., BNF or NWR) for nitrogen provisioning were accelerated when the available nitrogen in diets could not fully support the normal growth and development of insects; (2) the NWR strategy was more accessible to more insects due to its energy conservation and mild reaction conditions; (3) ammonia produced by different channels was used for essential nitrogenous metabolites synthesis via the glutamine synthetase and glutamate synthase pathways. Abstract Nitrogen is usually a restrictive nutrient that affects the growth and development of insects, especially of those living in low nitrogen nutrient niches. In response to the low nitrogen stress, insects have gradually developed symbiont-based stress response strategies—biological nitrogen fixation and nitrogenous waste recycling—to optimize dietary nitrogen intake. Based on the above two patterns, atmospheric nitrogen or nitrogenous waste (e.g., uric acid, urea) is converted into ammonia, which in turn is incorporated into the organism via the glutamine synthetase and glutamate synthase pathways. This review summarized the reaction mechanisms, conventional research methods and the various applications of biological nitrogen fixation and nitrogenous waste recycling strategies. Further, we compared the bio-reaction characteristics and conditions of two strategies, then proposed a model for nitrogen provisioning based on different strategies.

In order to understand the role of symbionts for their insect hosts, it is customary to treat them with antibiotics or to sterilize eggs (treatments), resulting in aposymbiotic and axenic insects, respectively. Such axenic insects can then be compared with untreated controls. Fruit flies often bear complex communities which are greatly reduced by such treatments. However, the bacterial community is not completely eliminated. Here, we examine the effect of these procedures on the structure of the remaining bacterial communities in Bactrocera dorsalis (Diptera: Tephritidae) and on the insect longevity. The antibiotics (Norfloxacin and Ceftazedime) were administered to 1-day-old adult flies through sugar meal for 7 days, and eggs were surface sterilized and dechorionated to produce axenic lines. The flies were starved of protein before they were offered full diets or diets containing non-essential amino acids only. Antibiotic and egg disinfection treatments resulted in a significant reduction of the vast majority of gut bacterial populations, especially Proteobacteria, Firmicutes and Bacteroidetes. On the other hand, antibiotic allowed the persistence of Actinobacteria, Cyanobacteria and Acidobacteria populations. In untreated control flies, longevity was extended irrespective of diet quality in comparison to treated flies. Conversely, when gut bacteria were largely reduced (aposymbiotic and axenic flies), longevity was reduced in the non-essential amino acids diet treatment versus slightly improved in the presence of a protein diet. We discuss these results in an ecological–life-history perspective.

The adaptation of phytophagous insects to host defence is an important aspect of plant-insect interactions. The reciprocal adaptability between specialist insects and their hosts have been adequately explored; however, the mechanisms underlying the adaptation of tephritid fruit fly specialists, a group of notorious pests worldwide, to unripen host fruits remain elusive. Here, plant metabolomes and insect transcriptomes were analysed for the first time to explore the interaction between unripe citrus fruits and the Chinese citrus fly Bactrocera minax. Seventeen citrus secondary metabolites, mainly flavones, alkaloids and phenylpropanoids, were identified in the unripe citrus fruit metabolome and they accumulated during larval feeding. Three detoxification genes (1 P450 gene, 2 ABCs genes) were highly expressed in B. minax larvae collected from unripe citrus fruits compared with the ones fed on artificial diets and ripe citrus fruits. Based on omics data, a novel ABC gene was screened through plant allelopathy tests and the gene was significantly upregulated in B. minax larvae treated with defensive secondary metabolites; additionally, the mortality rate of the larvae reached 51% after silencing the ABC gene by RNAi technique. Overall, these results shed light on the mechanisms underlying the biological interactions between tephritid fruit fly specialists and host fruits.

In this study, a novel phase change material (PCM) of epoxy resin sealed expanded graphite/paraffin composite was developed as an independent attachment for building applications. A relatively high...

Vision plays a critical role in host location and oviposition behavior for herbivorous insects. However, the molecular mechanisms underlying visual regulation in host recognition and oviposition site selection in insects remains unknown. The aim of this study was to explore the key visual genes that are linked to the host plant location of the fruit fly, Bactrocera minax.Using a host specialist fruit fly, B. minax, which lays eggs only into immature green citrus fruit, we undertook behavioral, transcriptomic, and RNAi research to identify the molecular basis for host fruit color recognition. In laboratory and field assays we found that adults prefer green over other colors, and this preference is significantly increased in sexually mature over immature flies. Furthermore, we identified that the Rh6 gene, responsible for green spectral sensitivity, has elevated expression in mature flies over immature flies. RNAi suppression of Rh6 eliminated the preference for green, resulting in a significant decrease in the number of eggs laid by B. minax in green unripe citrus.These results show that the Rh6 gene modulates the visual mechanism of host utilization in B. minax, providing a genetic basis for visual host location in a non-model insect herbivore. © 2018 Society of Chemical Industry.

A class of weakly U-abundant semigroups satisfying the congruence condition (C) is investigated, which contains both the class of regular semigroups and the class of abundant semigroups as its subclasses. In particular, the class of weakly U-abundant semigroups satisfying the congruence condition (C) with Ehresmann transversals is studied. After giving some properties of U-abundant semigroups with Ehresmann transversals, we establish some characterization theorems for such semigroups. Our results may be regarded as an extension of the work of Blyth, McAlister and McFadden in regular semigroups and that of El-Qallali, Guo and Chen in abundant semigroups.

The ability of a host plant to act as a substrate or media for larval development may depend on how good it is at offering suitable nutrients for bacterial growth. In this study, we hypothesized that the suitability of a fruit type for fruit fly larval development is positively correlated with the ability of that fruit to act as a substrate/media for fruit fly symbiotic bacterial growth. We allowed a single female fruit fly to lay eggs on five different host fruits, then we monitored the larval development parameters across five generations and analyzed the bacterial community structure of larvae developing in 2 of these hosts (apple and banana) at the first and fifth generations. Results indicate that the larval length and dry weight did not vary significantly across experimental generations, but were greatly affected by fruit types and larval stages. The larval development time was extended considerably in apple and tomato but shortened in banana and mango. There was a significant shift in bacterial community structure and composition across fruits and generations. The bacterial community of larvae within the same fruit (apple and banana) clustered and was similar to the parental female (with the predominance of Proteobacteria), but there was a shift at the fifth generation (dominance of Firmicutes). Banana offered a suitable better development and growth to larvae and bacteria, respectively, compared to apple in which reduced larval development and bacterial growth were recorded. Although additional experiments are needed to adequately show that the differences in microbiome seen in fruit fly larval guts are the actual driver of different developmental outcomes of larvae on the different fruits, at the very least, our study has provided intriguing data suggesting interaction between the diets and gut microbial communities on insect development.Importance and Significance of the studyTephritid fruit flies entertain complex interactions with gut bacteria. These bacteria are known to provide nutritional benefits to their hosts, by supplementing missing nutrients from the host diets and regulating energy balance. Foraging for food is a risky exercise for the insect which is exposed to ecological adversities, including predators. Therefore, making beneficial choice among available food substrates is a question of survival for the flies and bacteria as well. Our study demonstrates interactions between the host fly and its intestinal bacteria in sustaining the larval development while foraging optimally on different fruit types. These findings add a novel step into our understanding of the interactions between the gut microbial communities and B. dorsalis and provide avenues for developing control strategies to limit the devastative incidence of the fly.

Background The gut bacteria of tephritid fruit flies play prominent roles in nutrition, reproduction, maintenance and ecological adaptations of the host. Here, we adopted an approach based on direct observation of symbiotic or axenic flies feeding on dishes seeded with drops of full diet (containing all amino acids) or full diet supplemented with bacteria at similar concentrations to explore the effects of intestinal bacteria on foraging decision and fitness of Bactrocera dorsalis. Results The results show that intestinal probiotics elicit beneficial foraging decision and enhance the female reproduction fitness and survival of B. dorsalis (symbiotic and axenic), yet preferences for probiotic diets were significantly higher in axenic flies to which they responded faster compared to full diet. Moreover, females fed diet supplemented with Pantoea dispersa and Enterobacter cloacae laid more eggs but had shorter lifespan while female fed Enterococcus faecalis and Klebsiella oxytoca enriched diets lived longer but had lower fecundity compared to the positive control. Conversely, flies fed sugar diet (negative control) were not able to produce eggs, but lived longer than those from the positive control. Conclusions These results suggest that intestinal bacteria can drive the foraging decision in a way which promotes the reproduction and survival of B. dorsalis. Our data highlight the potentials of gut bacterial isolates to control the foraging behavior of the fly and empower the sterile insect technique (SIT) program through the mass rearing.

We introduce the relations [Formula: see text] and [Formula: see text] with respect to a subset U of idempotents. Based on [Formula: see text] and [Formula: see text], we define a new class of semigroups which we name U-concordant semigroups. Our purpose is to describe U-concordant semigroups by generalized categories over a regular biordered set. We show that the category of U-concordant semigroups and admissible morphisms is isomorphic to the category of RBS generalized categories and pseudo functors. Our approach is inspired from Armstrong’s work on the connection between regular biordered sets and concordant semigroups. The significant difference in strategy is by using RBS generalized categories equipped with pre-orders, we have no need to discuss the quotient of a category factored by a congruence.

A likely symbiotic association between tephritid fruit flies and gut bacteria has been recognized since the beginning of the last century. However, direct evidence for a link between gut bacteria and fruit fly fitness is still limited or absent for many species. Similar to other tephritids, the gut of Bactrocera minax (Enderlein) (Diptera: Tephritidae) is known to contain bacteria throughout the life stage, but what, if any, impact these bacteria have on B. minax fitness is entirely unknown. In order to elucidate the effects of bacteria on the fitness of B. minax, resident bacteria were isolated from the adult gut using culture-dependent techniques. Adult fly diets were subsequently supplemented with three bacterial isolates (Klebsiella pneumonia, Citrobacter braakii and Pantoea dispersa), or bacteria were removed from flies by antibiotics treatment: untreated adults provided a control. Adult fitness parameters (male and female longevity, female fecundity, male copulation number) were measured for the two treatments and one control group. Results were complex depending on the fitness parameter measured and the bacterial species. Compared to the controls, antibiotic treated B. minax had significantly decreased fecundity, but male and female longevity was increased. When flies were fed diets supplemented with any of the three bacterial isolates, female fecundity was significantly enhanced. However, only Citrobacter braakii significantly increased male mating frequency than control males. The results show that gut bacteria directly influence fitness of B. minax, but impacts are dependent on the bacterial species and the fitness parameters measured.

Quasi-automatic semigroups are extensions of a Cayley graph of an automatic group. Of course, a quasi-automatic semigroup generalizes an automatic semigroup. We observe that a semigroup [Formula: see text] may be automatic only when [Formula: see text] is finitely generated, while a semigroup may be quasi-automatic but it is not necessary finitely generated. Similar to the usual automatic semigroups, a quasi-automatic semigroup is closed under direct and free products. Furthermore, a semigroup [Formula: see text] is graph automatic if and only if [Formula: see text] with a zero element adjoined is graph automatic, and also a semigroup [Formula: see text] is graph automatic if and only if [Formula: see text] with an identity element adjoined is graph automatic. However, the class of quasi-automatic semigroups is a much wider class than the class of automatic semigroups. In this paper, we show that every automatic semigroup is quasi-automatic but the converse statement is not true (see Example ??). In addition, we notice that the quasi-automatic semigroups are invariant under the changing of generators, while a semigroup may be automatic with respect to a finite generating set but not the other. Finally, the connection between the quasi-automaticity of two semigroups [Formula: see text] and [Formula: see text], where [Formula: see text] is a subsemigroup with finite Rees index in [Formula: see text] will be investigated and considered.

An abundant semigroup S is a superabundant semigroup if each $\mathcal{H}^*$-class of S contains an idempotent. We call a superabundant semigroup a left regular cyber-group if the set of its idempotents forms a left regular band. After the investigation of the properties of superabundant semigroups, we establish a structure theorem for the left regular cybergroups by using the newly defined left twist product of semigroups.

The investigation of U-ample ω-semigroups is initiated. After obtaining some properties of such semigroups, a structure of U-ample ω-semigroups is established. It is proved that a semigroup is a U-ample ω-semigroup if and only if it can be expressed by WBR(T, θ), namely, the weakly Bruck-Reilly extensions of a monoid T. This result not only extends and amplifies the structure theorem of bisimple inverse ω-semigroups given by N. R. Reilly, but also generalizes the structure theorem of *-bisimple type A ω-semigroups given by U. Asibong-Ibe in 1985.

A U-abundant semigroup whose subset U satisfies a permutation identity is said to be Uσ-abundant. In this paper, we consider the minimum Ehresmann congruence δ on a Uσ-abundant semigroup and explore the relationship between the category of Uσ-abundant semigroups (S,U) and the category of Ehresmann semigroups (S,U)/δ. We also establish a structure theorem of Uσ-abundant semigroups by using the concept of quasi-spined product of semigroups. This generalizes a result of Yamada for regular semigroups in 1967 and a result of Guo for abundant semigroups in 1997.

It was first proved by McAlister in 1983 that every locally inverse semigroup is a locally isomorphic image of a regular Rees matrix semigroup over an inverse semigroup and Lawson in 2000 further generalized this result to some special locally adequate semigroups. In this paper, we show how these results can be extended to a class of locally Ehresmann semigroups.

The super-r-wide semigroups (in [6], called super-r-ample semigroups) [ortho-lc-monoids] within the class of rpp semigroups form a kind of generalized completely regular semigroups [orthogroups]. In this article, some structure theorems of ortho-lc-monoids are established and some special ortho-lc-monoids such as orthocrypto-lc-monoids, lc-Clifford semigroups, which we defined, are considered; the semilattice decomposition of super-r-wide semigroups is given. As direct corollaries of the results that we obtained, some new structure theorems for ortho-c-monoids and orthogroups, different from [10, 13], are given, and hence, the structure theorem for ortho-lc-monoids that we established is not the direct generalization of the results in [10, 13]; the structure of orthocryptogroups is reobtained; the well-known Clifford theorem is further generalized.

As a generalization of quasi-inverse semigroups in the class of regular semigroups, we consider the Q ⁎ -inverse semigroups which are idempotent-connected abundant semigroups with regular bands. In this paper, a construction theorem of Q ⁎ -inverse semigroups is given by using the wreath product of some semigroups. It is proved that a semigroup S is a Q ⁎ -inverse semigroup if and only if S is a spined product of an L ⁎ -inverse semigroup and an R ⁎ -inverse semigroup. Thus the structure of Q ⁎ -inverse semigroups is fully described and the results on quasi-inverse semigroups obtained by M. Yamada in 1973 are extended and amplified.

A U-abundant semigroup S in which every \( \mathcal{H} \)-class of S contains an element in the set of projections U of S is said to be a U-superabundant semigroup. This is an analogue of regular semigroups which are unions of groups and an analogue of abundant semigroups which are superabundant. In 1941, Clifford proved that a semigroup is a union of groups if and only if it is a semilattice of completely simple semigroups. Several years later, Fountain generalized this result to the class of superabundant semigroups. In this paper, we extend their work to U-superabundant semigroups.

As a generalization of an orthodox semigroup in the class of regular semigroups, a type W semigroup was first investigated by El-Qallali and Fountain. As an analogy of the type W semigroups in the class of abundant semigroups, we introduce the U-orthodox semigroups. It is shown that the maximum congruence μ contained in Open image in new window on U-orthodox semigroups can be determined. As a consequence, we show that a U-orthodox semigroup S can be expressed by the spined product of a Hall semigroup WU and a V-ample semigroup (T,V). This theorem not only generalizes a known result of Hall-Yamada for orthodox semigroups but also generalizes another known result of El-Qallali and Fountain for type W semigroups.

In this paper, we study the structure of a superabundant semigroup S whose set of idempotents E(S) forms a subsemigroup. We call such a semigroup a cyber-group because it is a generalization of orthogroups in the class of completely regular semigroups studied by Petrich and Reilly. We show that a cyber-group can be expressed as a semilattice of rectangular monoids. Thus, our result generalizes the well-known result obtained by Petrich in 1987 for orthogroups. Some properties of cyber-groups are given and some special superabundant semigroups are discussed.

The concepts of ℒ*-inverse semigroups and left wreath products of semigroups are introduced. It is shown that the ℒ*-inverse semigroup can be described as the left wreath product of a type A semigroup Γ and a left regular band B together with a mapping which maps the semigroup Γ into the endomorphism semigroup End(B). This result generalizes the structure theorem of Yamada for the left inverse semigroups in the class of regular semigroups. We shall also provide a constructed example for the ℒ*-inverse semigroups by using the left wreath products.

We use Malcev product of semigroups satisfying some axiomatic conditions to describe the structure of superabundant semigroups and some of its subclasses. Some characterization theorems of these kinds of semigroups are given.

In this paper, we introduce an important subclass of quasiregular semigroups, namely the class of C*-quasiregular semigroups. This class of semigroups contains the classes of Clifford semigroups, quasi Clifford semigroups, C-quasiregular semigroups and their generalizations as its subclasses. Some characterization theorems for such semigroups are obtained. The structure of this kind of quasiregular semigroups is investigated by using the generalized ▵-product of some semigroups on a semilattice Y. Construction techniques of such classes of semigroups are particularly demonstrated.

Let S be an ideal nil-extension of a completely regular semigroupK by a nil semigroupQ with zero. A concept of admissible congruence pairs (δ,ω) of S is introduced, where δ and ω are a congruence on Q and a congruence onK respectively. It is proved that every congruence on S can be uniquely respresented by an admissible congruence pair (δ,ω) ofS. Suppose that ϱk denotes the Rees congruence induced by the idealK ofS. Then it is shown that for any congruenceσ on S, a mapping Γ: σ ¦→ (σQ, σK) is an order-preserving bijection from the set of all congruences on S onto the set of all admissible congruence pairs of S, where σK is the restriction of σ toK and σQ = (σ V ϱK) / ϱK. Moreover, the lattice of congruences of S is also discussed. As a special case, every congruence on completely Archimedean semigroups S is described by an admissible quarterple of S. The following question is asked: Is the lattice of congruences of the completely Archimedean semigroup a semimodular lattice?

A structure theorem for superabundant semigroups in terms of semilattices of normalized Rees matrix semigroups over some cancellative monoids is obtained. This result not only provides a construction method for superabundant semigroups but also generalizes the well-known result of Petrich on completely regular semigroups. Some results obtained by Fountain on abundant semigroups are also extended and strengthened.