Leafhopper Vectors and Plant Disease Agents

Book excerpt: Leafhopper Vectors and Plant Disease Agents is the second in a multivolume series on vectors, vector-borne disease agents, and plant disease spread. This text aims to collect findings in leafhopper vector research, to suggest promising frontiers for further research, and to call attention to possible practical applications of understanding of leafhopper-pathogen-plant interactions. This book is organized into five parts. Opening chapters on the taxonomy, bionomics, and worldwide importance of leafhopper and planthopper vectors are appropriately relegated to Parts I and II. Part III focuses on vector-virus interactions of leafhopper-, planthopper-, and aphid-borne viruses and virus-induced, cytopathological changes in vectors. This part also explains the interactions of mycoplasmalike organisms (MLOs) and viruses in dually infected leafhoppers, planthoppers, and plants, as well as the transitory vector-virus interactions. The artificial and aseptic rearing of vectors, microinjection technique, vector tissue culture, and spiroplasmas and its vectors are all covered in Part IV. Part V contains chapters on specific leafhopper-borne viruses and MLOs, leafhopper and planthopper vector control, leafhopper-borne pathogens of corn-stunting diseases, Western X disease, and leafhopper-borne xylem-restricted pathogens. This text will be valuable for students, teachers, and researchers of vector-pathogen-plant relationships. Its in-depth coverage of leafhoppers and planthoppers as vectors makes this book ideally suited as a supplemental text in graduate entomology and plant pathology courses on insect transmission of plant disease agents.