Population Genomics of Benzoxazinoid Resistance in Entomopathogenic Nematodes ...

The increasing global population and the need for enhanced food production present significant challenges to modern agriculture. Traditional methods, such as expanding arable land and extensive use of chemical pesticides, are no longer viable due to biodiversity conservation concerns and the negative impacts of chemicals on ecosystems. This has led to the exploration of alternative pest control strategies, including the use of entomopathogenic nematodes (EPNs). These nematode-bacterium symbiotic complexes can infect and kill insect pests and have been used in agricultural biocontrol for decades. However, their generalist nature limits their effectiveness against specialist pests such as the western corn rootworm (WCR), Diabrotica virgifera virgifera, which sequesters maize-derived benzoxazinoids (BXs) to defend itself from natural enemies, including EPNs. In this thesis, we used Heterorhabditis bacteriophora as an EPN model to explore the evolutionary, ecological, and genomic factors that influence its ...