By John Lovett
Scientists are getting a leg up on the rice stink bug, one of the most significant threats to rice, a staple food for nearly half of the world’s population and a major crop in Arkansas.
With funding support from the Arkansas Biosciences Institute, researchers with the Arkansas Agricultural Experiment Station, the University of Arkansas Division of Agriculture's research arm, generated the first high-quality, chromosome-scale reference genome for the rice stink bug, Oebalus pugnax, identifying more than 13,000 genes with broad biological and agricultural relevance.
The development created a foundational resource to help scientists better understand how the insect feeds, adapts to host plants and potentially develops resistance to insecticides. The study, published in the Journal of Heredity, provides the most detailed genomic analysis to date of the rice stink bug, which feeds on more than 15 host plant species, including grain sorghum, and has shown resistance to pyrethroid insecticides in some populations.
“This gives us our first chromosome-scale view of the rice stink bug genome,” said Rich Adams, an assistant professor of agricultural statistics for the experiment station and corresponding author of the study. “We were able to assemble much of the nuclear genome, identify more than 13,000 genes and uncover genetic features involved in the insect’s biology and interactions with agricultural systems.
Source : uada.edu