''Athalia rosae'', the turnip sawfly, cabbage leaf sawfly or beet sawfly, is a typical sawfly with dark green or blackish 18–25 mm long

larva A larva (; : larvae ) is a distinct juvenile form many animals undergo before metamorphosis into their next life stage. Animals with indirect development such as insects, some arachnids, amphibians, or cnidarians typically have a larval phase ...

e that feed on plants of the

brassica ''Brassica'' () is a genus of plants in the cabbage and mustard family (Brassicaceae). The members of the genus are informally known as cruciferous vegetables, cabbages, mustard plants, or simply brassicas. Crops from this genus are sometim ...

family, and can sometimes be a pest. It winters below the ground, emerging in early summer as a 7–8 mm adult with a mainly orange body and a black head. The adult feeds on

nectar Nectar is a viscous, sugar-rich liquid produced by Plant, plants in glands called nectaries, either within the flowers with which it attracts pollination, pollinating animals, or by extrafloral nectaries, which provide a nutrient source to an ...

. The turnip sawfly was found to result in diploid males and females after sister-brother matings. This differs from normal

haplodiploid Haplodiploidy is a sex-determination system in which males develop from unfertilized eggs and are haploid, and females develop from fertilized eggs and are diploid. Haplodiploidy is sometimes called arrhenotoky. Haplodiploidy determines the se ...

hymenoptera and after a further cross causing triploid males, resulted in evidence that sex determination is controlled by a single locus. The sawflies have been found to sequester glucosinolates like many insects in larval stages. Removal of various glucosinolates has been shown to reduce sensitivity to host plants in later adult stages. The fact that glucosinolates being removed causes reduced sensitivity to future possible host plants has been used to argue that these chemicals are important in specific larval patterning to future host plant options. Due to no current primitive Hymenoptera, the turnip sawfly is being worked on for genome sequencing. This effort will add to the planned i5K, the effort to sequence 5,000 insect genomes in 5 years.

References

External links

NCBI Genome
page for Athalia rosae
i5k initiative
for Athalia rosae {{Taxonbar, from=Q1680271 Tenthredinidae Sawflies described in 1758 Taxa named by Carl Linnaeus