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What about the insects?

Posted by redfield on 31 Dec 2006 at 23:03 GMT

Just to get some discussion going, does the dependence of these viruses on insect vectors change our expectations? Don't the host ranges of the vectors also need to be factored into the expectations? Would it be difficult to do a similar analysis on viruses that are directly transmitted between hosts?

RE: What about the insects?

fegarciaarenal replied to redfield on 09 Jan 2007 at 15:20 GMT

WE do not know much about the insects, we have not similar data for them as fot he viruses. However, we do not think their host range will condition the observations: the aphid species found in that ecosystem that are known to transmit the four aphid transmitted viruses are generalists and feed in most of the 21 plant species analysed. The same is true for the thrips transmitting TSWV.
About non-vectored transmitted pathogens: no data seem to be available. It would be good to have them to compare!