Dataset Information

Machine Learning for Characterization of Insect Vector Feeding.

ABSTRACT: Insects that feed by ingesting plant and animal fluids cause devastating damage to humans, livestock, and agriculture worldwide, primarily by transmitting pathogens of plants and animals. The feeding processes required for successful pathogen transmission by sucking insects can be recorded by monitoring voltage changes across an insect-food source feeding circuit. The output from such monitoring has traditionally been examined manually, a slow and onerous process. We taught a computer program to automatically classify previously described insect feeding patterns involved in transmission of the pathogen causing citrus greening disease. We also show how such analysis contributes to discovery of previously unrecognized feeding states and can be used to characterize plant resistance mechanisms. This advance greatly reduces the time and effort required to analyze insect feeding, and should facilitate developing, screening, and testing of novel intervention strategies to disrupt pathogen transmission affecting agriculture, livestock and human health.

SUBMITTER: Willett DS

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5104375 | biostudies-literature | 2016 Nov

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Machine Learning for Characterization of Insect Vector Feeding.

Willett Denis S DS George Justin J Willett Nora S NS Stelinski Lukasz L LL Lapointe Stephen L SL

PLoS computational biology 20161110 11

Insects that feed by ingesting plant and animal fluids cause devastating damage to humans, livestock, and agriculture worldwide, primarily by transmitting pathogens of plants and animals. The feeding processes required for successful pathogen transmission by sucking insects can be recorded by monitoring voltage changes across an insect-food source feeding circuit. The output from such monitoring has traditionally been examined manually, a slow and onerous process. We taught a computer program to ...[more]

PMID: 27832081

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Dataset Information

Machine Learning for Characterization of Insect Vector Feeding.

Publications

Machine Learning for Characterization of Insect Vector Feeding.

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