Phenacoccus manihoti Matile-Ferrero (Hemiptera: Pseudococcidae), one of the most serious pests of cassava worldwide, has recently reached Asia, raising significant concern over its potential spread throughout the region. To support management decisions, this article reports recent distribution records, and estimates the climatic suitability for its regional spread using a CLIMEX distribution model. The article also presents a taxonomic key that separates P. manihoti from all other mealybug species associated with the genus Manihot. Model predictions suggest P. manihoti imposes an important, yet differential, threat to cassava production in Asia. Predicted risk is most acute in the southern end of Karnataka in India, the eastern end of the Ninh Thuan province in Vietnam, and in most of West Timor in Indonesia. The model also suggests P. manihoti is likely to be limited by cold stress across Vietnam's northern regions and in the entire Guangxi province in China, and by high rainfall across the wet tropics in Indonesia and the Philippines. Predictions should be particularly important to guide management decisions for high risk areas where P. manihoti is absent (e.g., India), or where it has established but populations remain small and localized (e.g., South Vietnam). Results from this article should help decision-makers assess site-specific risk of invasion, and develop proportional prevention and surveillance programs for early detection and rapid response.

<p class="Corpoica">A brief introduction to the science of coccidology, and a synopsis of the history, advances and challenges in this field of study are discussed. The changes in coccidology since the publication of the <em>Systema Naturae </em>by Carolus Linnaeus 250 years ago are briefly reviewed. The economic importance, the phylogenetic relationships and the application of DNA barcoding to scale insect identification are also considered in the discussion section. </p><p class="Corpoica"> </p><p class="Corpoica"><strong>Coccidología. El estudio de insectos escama (Hemiptera: Sternorrhyncha: Coccoidea) </strong></p><p class="Corpoica">Se presenta una breve introducción a la ciencia de la coccidología y se discute una sinopsis de la historia, avances y desafíos de este campo de estudio. Se hace una breve revisión de los cambios de la coccidología desde la publicación de <em>Systema Naturae </em>por Carolus Linnaeus hace 250 años. También se discuten la importancia económica, las relaciones filogenéticas y la aplicación de códigos de barras del ADN en la identificación de insectos escama. </p>

industrial hemp (Cannabis sativa L.) is a high-yielding annual crop primarily grown for fiber, seeds, and oil. Due to the phytochemical composition of hemp, there has been an increased interest in the market for nutraceuticals and dietary supplements for human health. Recent omics analysis has led to the elucidation of hemp candidate genes involved in the syntheses of specialized metabolites. However, a detailed study of these genes has not been undertaken due to the lack of a stable transformation system. We report for the first time an agroinfiltration system in hemp utilizing vacuum infiltration, which is an alternative method to stable transformation. A combination of 0.015% Silwett L-77, 5 mM ascorbic acid, and thirty second sonication followed by a 10-minute vacuum treatment resulted in the highest β-glucuronidase expression in the leaf, male and female flowers, stem, and root tissues. The phytoene desaturase gene was silenced with a transient hairpin RNA expression, resulting in an albino phenotype in the leaves and the male and female flowers. This agroinfiltration system would be useful for overexpression and silencing studies of target genes to regulate the yield of specialized metabolites in hemp.

We provide objective criteria for assessing the taxonomic status of genera, especially those that are monotypic, using the coccid genus Taiwansaissetia Tao, Wong & Chang. This genus contains only the type species, Lecanium formicarii Green [currently Taiwansaissetia formicarii (Green)], known from the Afrotropical and Oriental regions. Here, Taiwansaissetia is synonymised (syn.nov.) with Coccus Linnaeus (Hemiptera: Coccidae) on the basis of phylogenetic analyses of DNA sequence data and morphological examination. All analyses (maximum parsimony, neighbour-joining and Bayesian inference) of four gene regions (18S, 28S, COI and EF-1α), and a concatenation of these regions, placed the clade including T. formicarii and three unidentified Coccus specimens as sister to the type species of Coccus, C. hesperidum Linnaeus, with high support. Taiwansaissetia formicarii is more closely related to C. hesperidum than C. hesperidum is to C. viridis (Green), which is considered to be a 'typical' species of Coccus, and several other current members of Coccus [C. longulus (Douglas), C. penangensis Morrison and C. pseudomagnoliarum (Kuwana)]. Explicit criteria, including monophyly, diagnosability, sister taxa being of equal rank, and the level of genetic divergence between T. formicarii and C. hesperidum relative to within-genus divergence of other scale insects, were used to assess the taxonomic status of Taiwansaissetia. The autapomorphic features of Taiwansaissetia that differentiate it from typical species of Coccus might be due to its myrmecophilous habit and adaptation to living inside ant nests -most other species of Coccus live externally on their host plants. Since its description in 1896, T. formicarii has been placed in four different genera: here we transfer it back to Coccus as C. formicarii (Green) stat.rev. We rediagnose the genus Coccus to accommodate the features of C. formicarii. This study also found that Coccus might not be monophyletic, warranting further study of the group.Correspondence: Yen-Po Lin,