Jose Marcelino

University of the Azores - University of Florida - Univ. Puerto Rico

Background Honey bees are the principal commercial pollinators. Along with other arthropods, they are increasingly under threat from anthropogenic factors such as the incursion of invasive honey bee subspecies, pathogens and parasites. Better tools are needed to identify bee subspecies. Genomic data for economic and ecologically important organisms...

Pollinators and their pollination services provide economic, environmental and socio-cultural value worldwide. In the last decades, managed honey bees have declined due to the synergistic effects of habitat loss, pathogens and anthropogenic threats such as chemical use and climate change. Annual colony losses have been considerable in many regions...

Pests and pathogens are a continuous threat to the health of Western honey bee Apis mellifera L. Monitoring honey bee colonies for arthropod pests, disease‐causing bacteria and fungi, and early detection of new invasions is essential to maintain the pollination services provided by honey bees. We investigated the feasibility of using eDNA metabarco...

Beekeeping is a cornerstone activity that has led to the human-mediated, global spread of western honey bees (Apis mellifera L.) outside their native range of Europe, western Asia, and Africa. The exportation/importation of honey bees (i.e., transfer of honey bees or germplasm between countries) is regulated at the national level in many countries....

Platypus cylindrus is the most common ambrosia beetle in stands of Quercus suber in Portugal. This insect farms specialized fungi in sapwood galleries, using its mycangia to carry and store these organisms. Some ectosymbiotic fungi carried by P. cylindrus are phytopathogenic and cause extensive tree mortality and severe economic losses. To understa...

Research Highlights: Raffaelea quercina sp. nov. is an ophiostomatoid fungus isolated from the ambrosia beetle Platypus cylindrus. The species occurs in symptomatic Portuguese cork oak trees, (Quercus suber L.), exhibiting vegetative decline. Background and Objectives: Quercus suber L. is a species restricted to the Mediterranean basin, of special...

In this paper, we present an extensive checklist of selected arthropods and their distribution in five Islands of the Azores (Santa Maria. São Miguel, Terceira, Flores and Pico). Habitat surveys included five herbaceous and four arboreal habitat types, scaling up from native to anthropogenic managed habitats. We aimed to contribute to the ongoing e...

The chapter discusses the short-term and long-term effects of microbial pesticides on human health and the environment. The effect of preparations based on fungi, bacteria and viruses are documented and include long-term exposure vs short-term contact with the production and/or application of microbial preparations. Positive, negative, direct, and...

The chapter discusses strategies for an efficient and safe microbial pesticide use in various types of natural and artificial ecosystems. Open and closed ecosystems are also discriminated and discussed. Attention is given to novel directions in biocontrol strategies aiming for the integrated pest management of harmful species of agricultural and hu...

The chapter describes all groups of pesticides created on the basis of living microorganisms, e.g., viruses, bacteria, fungi, and protozoa. Information is also provided regarding microbial metabolites used as pest control agents. Safety considerations for the application of microbial preparations in medicine, agriculture, food industry, aquaculture...

The chapter provides an overview of the manufacturing processes for microbial pesticide production. General protocols for the industrial cultivation of bacteriophages, aiming for the control of bacterial diseases of humans, animals, and plants, are documented. Technologies for the mass propagation of entomopathogenic viruses are shown both on cell...

The chapter contains concise up-to-date information about current practical and potential use of all types of microorganisms with interest for regulating populations of harmful organisms toward humans, agricultural pests, and pathogens. These include viruses, bacteria, fungi, protozoa, and microbial metabolites. Original photographs of all the main...

Islands harbour evolutionary and ecologically unique biota, which are currently disproportionately threatened by a multitude of anthropogenic factors, including habitat loss, invasive species and climate change. Native forests on oceanic islands are important refugia for endemic species, many of which are rare and highly threatened. Long-term monit...

Recently, we described changes in plant community composition along gradients of anthropogenic disturbance, using a multinomial distribution in a Bayesian framework. Species were organized into categories (e.g. endemic, native, naturalized, invasive) and the proportions of each category in each community were represented by a multinomial vector. We...

This paper describes the distribution and genetic variability of rove beetles (Coleoptera Staphylinidae) in anthropogenically influenced insular landscapes. The study was conducted in the Azores archipelago, characterized by high anthropogenic influence and landscape fragmentation. Collections were made in five islands, from eight habitats, along a...

Human influence associated with land use may cause considerable biodiversity losses, namely in oceanic islands such as the Azores. Our goal was to identify plant indicator species across two gradients of increasing anthropogenic influence and management (arborescent and herbaceous communities) and determine similarity between plant communities of u...

Mycopathogens of economically important exotic invasive insects in forests of northeastern USA have been the subject of research at the Entomology Research Laboratory, University of Vermont, for the last 20 years. Elongate hemlock scale, European fruit lecanium, hemlock woolly adelgid and pear thrips were analyzed for the presence of mycopathogens,...

2013. New records of exotic spiders and insects to the Azores, and new data on recently introduced species. Arquipelago. Life and Marine Sciences 30: 57-70. The introduction of exotic species in islands is recognized as a major threat to native biota and ecosystems. In this contribution we list thirteen widespread exotic invertebrate species (two A...

The aim of this study was to assess the impact of anthropogenic disturbance on the partitioning of plant communities (species spectra) across a landcover gradient of community types, categorizing species on the basis of their biogeographic, ecological, and conservation status. We tested a multinomial model to generate species spectra and monitor ch...

The presence of the oak pinhole borer, Platypus cylindrus (Coleoptera: Platypodidae), in Portuguese cork oak stands has drastically increased in the past few decades. A holistic approach to the study of the Ophiostomatoid fungi associated with P. cylindrus included the application of cultural, morphological and molecular techniques. Raffaelea monte...

Includes detailed guidelines for practical, expedient and accessible diagnostic methodologies of infectious diseases in insects. Techniques described provide reliable alternatives for preliminary pathogen identification which do not require special equipment or intensive training, in a step by step protocol format, and for an easy orientation and a...

Gives recommendations for prophylactics and control of infectious diseases in insect cultures. Sanitary measures for the establishment of axenic insect cultures using gnotobiotic insects are described. In addition, insect sanitation and therapy of disease are explained. Protocols for sterile and biosafety laboratory use, as well as insect culture h...

Describes the peculiarities of initial disease manifestation (cryptic, mild or acute) in insect cultures for prompt detection of abnormalities in the colony, namely external and internal symptoms and signs of disease (e.g. change of morphology and metamorphosis patterns, behavioral changes, etc.). This chapter is mostly useful for timely detection...

Provides a comprehensible and copious illustrated description of the most common diseases in laboratory reared insect colonies, comprising Viruses (Baculoviridae, Reoviridae, Poxviridae, and Iridoviridae); Bacteria (Bacillaciae, Pseudomonadaceae and Enterobacteriaceae); Rickettsia (Rickettsiaceae); Protozoa (Amebiases, Gregarine and Coccidian); Fun...

Sampling data for Collembola (Arthropoda: Hexapoda) bioindicator species in thirteen ecosystem types, representing a gradient of anthropogenic infl uence on four islands of the Azorean archipelago and Madeira Island were analyzed using rarefaction curves to determine species richness per habitat type. Rarefaction curves show that despite the high d...

This handbook gives a thorough, comprehensible and copious illustrated description of the most common diseases in laboratory reared insect colonies, comprising Viruses (Baculoviridae, Reoviridae, Poxviridae, and Iridoviridae); Bacteria (Bacillaciae, Pseudomonadaceae and Enterobacteriaceae); Rickettsia (Rickettsiaceae); Fungi (Entomophthorales and M...

A fungal epizootic in populations of Fiorinia externa Ferris (Hemiptera: Diaspididae) infesting hemlock trees, Tsuga canadensis (L.) Carrière (Pinales: Pinaceae) in forests of the Northeastern US has been recently detected. The current known distribution of the epizootic spans 36 sites in New York, Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Connecticut. Colletot...

Stands of eastern hemlock [(Tsuga canadensis (L.) Carrière] in the northeastern United States are in decline, in part from the attack of elongate hemlock scale, Fiorinia externa Ferris (Hemiptera: Diaspididae). From 2001 to the present, a natural epizootic has been observed in populations of F. externa. Initially discovered at the Mianus River Gorg...

A fungal epizootic has been detected in populations of the scale Fiorinia externa Ferris (Hemiptera: Diaspididae) in the eastern hemlock, Tsuga canadensis (L.) Carrière (Pinales: Pinaceae), of several northeastern states. Colletotrichum acutatum Simmonds var. fioriniae Marcelino and Gouli var. nov. inedit (Phyllachorales: Phyllachoraceae), a well-k...

Cryphonectria parasitica, the fungus that causes chestnut blight disease, was first described in Portugal (1929) on bark samples of Castanea crenata, collected in Beira Interior province. After this report, only in 1989 two disease foci were found on native European chestnut, C. sativa, in Trás-os-Montes e Alto Douro Province. To assess the current...

The front cover image is based on the Research Article "Colletotrichum acutatum var. fioriniae (Telemorph: Glomerella acutata var. fioriniae var. nov.) Infection of a Scale Insect", by Jose A. P. Marcelino et al. 2008, DOI: 10.3852/07-174R. Source Image: © Dr. Jose A. P. Marcelino.

An epizootic has been reported in Fiorinia externa populations in New York, Connecticut, Pennsylvania and NewJersey. Infected insects have profuse sclerotial masses enclosing their bodies. The most commonly isolated microorganism from infected F. externa was Colletotrichum sp. A morphological and molecular characterization of this fungus indicated...

Cryphonectria parasitica, the fungus that causes chestnut blight disease, was first de-scribed in Portugal (1929) on bark samples of Castanea crenata, collected in Beira Inte-rior province. After this report, only in 1989 two disease foci were found on native Euro-pean chestnut, C. sativa, in Trás-os-Montes e Alto Douro Province. To assess the curr...

Shternshis, M. (2008). Mortality of western flower thrips, Frankliniella occidentalis, under influence of single and mixed fungal inoculations. Journal of Agricultural Technology 4(2): 37-47. The entomopathogenic fungus Metarhizium anisopliae is proved to be a biological control agent for Western flower thrips (WFT) Frankliniella occidentalis. More...