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Team:KU Leuven/Project/Aphid Background
From 2013.igem.org
Secret garden
Congratulations! You've found our secret garden! Follow the instructions below and win a great prize at the World jamboree!
- A video shows that two of our team members are having great fun at our favourite company. Do you know the name of the second member that appears in the video?
- For one of our models we had to do very extensive computations. To prevent our own computers from overheating and to keep the temperature in our iGEM room at a normal level, we used a supercomputer. Which centre maintains this supercomputer? (Dutch abbreviation)
- We organised a symposium with a debate, some seminars and 2 iGEM project presentations. An iGEM team came all the way from the Netherlands to present their project. What is the name of their city?
Now put all of these in this URL:https://2013.igem.org/Team:KU_Leuven/(firstname)(abbreviation)(city), (loose the brackets and put everything in lowercase) and follow the very last instruction to get your special jamboree prize!
Aphid Biology 101
Basic aphid biology
Aphids are an extremely successful group of insects which occurs throughout the world, with the greatest number of species in the temperate regions: Europe, North America and Asia (Dixon et al, 1987). As individuals they are small and inconspicuous. However, they can become so numerous that they can damage whole fields or orchards. The complex life cycles and polymorphism enable them to exploit their host plants and respond to every alteration of their environment to a high degree (Biology of Aphids, Dixon, 1973). Aphids are small, mostly soft-bodied insects of the super family Aphidoidea (World crop pests, 2A, Aphids their biology, natural enemies and control, minks and harrewijn). Their body can be green, black brown, pink or almost colourless (Biology of aphids, Dixon, 1973). About 4400 species of 10 families are known and around 10% of these species are serious pests for agriculture and forestry (Dedryver et al, 2010). Annual worldwide crop losses due to aphids are estimated at hundreds of millions of dollars (Morrison and Peairs 1998).
Figure 1ǀ Red, yellow-green and green pea aphids.
