Location: Stored Product Insect and Engineering Research
Project Number: 3020-30400-001-021-S
Project Type: Non-Assistance Cooperative Agreement
Start Date: Jun 15, 2026
End Date: Jun 14, 2028
Objective:
1. Assess microbial vectoring capacity of stored product insects and identify factors influencing vectoring capacity.
2. Identify control tactics that can disrupt vectoring capacity, including temperature and insecticide usage.
3. Improve detection systems for stored product insects and pathogens in food facilities.
Approach:
Using field collected individuals from food facilities, we will use long- and short-read amplicon sequencing methods to assess how microbes on the cuticle and the gut change over the field season and how temperature and humidity influence microbial community diversity and composition across the field season at different types of food facilities (mills, field sites, and grain bins). In addition, we will determine whether the use of insecticides and other integrated pest management tactics, such as heat or cold treatments, influence vectoring capacity of pathogens, such as Salmonella, to determine whether the use of these tactics can improve food safety in flour mills. Finally, we will test commercially available sensor systems to determine whether they can successfully identify stored product insects and determine if they are carrying microbes. Some applicable sensor systems that could be included in our analysis are metal oxide, photoionization, carbon dioxide, infrared/hyperspectral imaging, crover grain system, and others.