This study describes a new genus and species of microsporidia which is a pathogen of the elm leaf beetle, Xanthogaleruca luteola Muller, 1776 (Coleoptera: Chrysomelidae). The beetles were collected from Istanbul in Turkey. All developmental stages are uninucleate and in direct contact with the host cell cytoplasm. Giemsa-stained mature spores are oval in shape and measured 3.40 ± 0.37 μm in length and 1.63 ± 0.20 μm in width. These uninucleate spores have an isofilar polar filament with 11 turns. The spore wall was trilaminar (75 to 115 nm) with a rugose, electron-dense exospore (34 to 45 nm) and a thickened, electron-lucent endospore (65 to 80 nm) overlaying the plasmalemma. Morphological, ultrastructural, and molecular features indicate that the described microsporidium is dissimilar to all known microsporidian taxa and confirm that it has different taxonomic characters than other microsporidia infecting X. luteola and is named here as Rugispora istanbulensis n. gen., n. sp.

The Colorado potato beetle, Leptinotarsa decemlineata Say, 1824 (Chrysomelidae: Coleoptera), is a major problem for conventional potato production in all over the world. Bioactive molecules that originated from plants, have long been claimed as alternatives to synthetic chemicals for pest management Similarly, we investigated antifeedant effect of essential oils obtained from three different Lamiaceae species; Thymus transcaucasicus RONNIGER, Thymus pseudopulegioides KLOKOV and DES.-SHOST, Thymus leucotrichus HAL. against L. decemlineata Say, 1824 (Chrysomelidae: Coleoptera) larvae. T. leucotrichus showed the most powerful and weakest antifeedant effect of the three plant species in different doses (r = 0.409, P < 0.01). The highest AFI value (AFI = 65.548) was obtained on the third day at 2000 ppm (P < 0.05) and the lowest AFI value was measured on the second day at 1000 ppm (AFI = 0.560). According to these results, T. leucotrichus essential oil is the most effective phytochemical against L. decemlineata larvae.

Nosema leptinotarsae Lipa, 1968 is a microsporidian pathogen of the Colorado potato beetle, Leptinotarsa decemlineata Say. (Coleoptera: Chrysomelidae). To determine the phylogenetic status of N. leptinotarsae, the 16S SSU rRNA gene was sequenced (GenBank Accession No. MN841279) and compared phylogenetically against 21 microsporidian 16S SSU rRNA sequences using neighbour-joining and maximum-parsimony methods. The per cent identities of the N. leptinotarsae and other members of the Nosema–Vairimorpha clade ranged from 78.1 to 98.5%. Pairwise phylogenetic distances between the N. leptinotarsae and other species ranged from 0.009 to 0.320. Phylogenetic analysis shows clearly that N. leptinotarsae is a member of the Vairimorpha clade rather than the Nosema clade. The sequence divergence and morphological traits separated the N. leptinotarsae from other species in the Vairimorpha complex. As a result, a new assignment of Vairimorpha leptinotarsae comb. nov. has been implemented for N. leptinotarsae according to the phylogenetical positioning in the present study.

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