Protection of produce and stored products from insect damage is critically important to maintaining and increasing the ever-growing demand for food. Protection is also paramount to prevent the spread of invasive insect species that disrupt food supply and native ecologies. Fumigants have long been used to control insects in all stages of life while leaving the product unharmed, i.e., safe for consumption. The most resistant life stage to fumigation is the egg stage, which means we need better understand egg physiology as related to gas exchange, both from the respiratory and toxicological perspective. In order to elucidate the gas exchange properties of specific pest eggs, we used osmium tetroxide exposures coupled with scanning electron microscopy and energy dispersive x-ray spectroscopy to view the relationship between physical egg morphology and gas exchange properties of specific egg morphologies. Due to the volatility and characteristic binding to lipids of osmium tetroxide it is commonly used as a stain in biological microscopy applications, but here we report this new utilization, which shed much light on the relative susceptibility of species to various fumigants.

Investigation of gas exchange in pest insect eggs using osmium tetroxide

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