avoiding infections in rearing programs

[Anthony Cynor]

"Koen.Berwaerts" wrote:

> Hello,
>
> Last year I started a culture of Pararge aegeria (Lepidoptera: Satyrinae)
> for my PhD-project (University of Antwerp).
> We collected females in a forest (end of july-begin of august) and put
> them into small cages with full grown plants
> (Poa trivialis). When eggs hatched, we put them individually in plastic
> jars and supplied them (mostly every day, sometimes with 2 or 3 days
> interval) with blades of grass. The whole system was placed outside. The
> problems rose at the end of september.
> Several body parts of the green caterpillars became black. In a later
> stadium, they died (whole body was black and shrinked). At this moment
> more than 75% of my whole population is gone (750 individuals). The
> cterpillars were investigated by some specialists and they told me that it
> was Bacillus thuringiensis, that infected my culture.

If this is accurate the microorganism is a spore former and difficult to
eliminate.  Best to get rid of anything that had contact with the infected
organisms and sterilize by autoclaving anything that is too expensive to get
rid of.  Lab surfaces can be sterilized with a mixture of 1 cup of bleach and
1 cup of laundry detergent to a 2 gallon bucket of water.  Do this outside or
in good ventilation as chlorine gas can be generated.  These procedures should
work with most viruses as well.

Best Wishes

Tony

> ********************************************************************
> Berwaerts Koen
> Laboratory of Animal Ecology
> Department of Biology
> University of Antwerp (U.I.A.)
> Universiteitsplein 1
> B-2610 Wilrijk (Antwerp)
> Belgium
> tel.: +32 3 820 22 62 -- fax.: +32 3 820 22 71
> E-mail: berwaert at uia.ua.ac.be
> Http://bio-www.uia.ac.be/bio/deco
> *********************************************************************