Comparative Morphometry of the <i>Sitophilus zeamais</i>Motschulsky Populations (Coleoptera: Curculionidae) Infesting Yellow Maize in Four West African Countries

Sitophilus zeamais is a primary pest of stored maize, which can cause quality and quantity losses. Maize is cultivated in several West African countries where different agro-climatic and agro-ecological conditions exist. These conditions could influence the Sitophilus zeamais morphology. Thus, the purpose of this study is to identify the Sitophilus zeamais morphological groups in the four countries. This was carried out through the morphometric study of 30 male Sitophilus zeamais individuals taken from the yellow maize in each country, by measuring with a binocular magnifying glass, 16 variables of the different tagmas belonging to the insect. Subsequently, statistical analyses were firstly carried out with the raw measurements, such as the principal component analysis, in order to extract the contribution of the variables on each factorial axis and to visualise the correlations between the variables. Taking the case of the transformed measurements, in addition to the principal component analysis, a discriminant factorial analysis was carried out to find out the best factor for gathering individuals according to their morphology, a confusion matrix to summarise the individual’s reclassification in order to deduce the good and bad classification rates, and an ascending hierarchical classification which consists of gathering the individuals according to their similarity and separating them according to their dissimilarity using the truncation method. Therefore, five morphological groups were identified. However, the existence of these morphological groups would not be linked to agro-ecological, climatic conditions and to the geographical remoteness between countries.

Acid/Base Treatment of Monolithic Activated Carbon for Coating Silver with Tunable Morphology

Silver coatings on the exterior surface of monolithic activated carbon（MAC） with different morphology were prepared by directly immersing MAC into [Ag（NH3）2]NO3 solution. Acid and base treatments were employed to modify the surface oxygenic groups of MAC, respectively. The MACs＇ Brunauer-EmmettTeller（BET） surface area, surface groups, and silver coating morphology were characterized by N2 adsorption, elemental analysis（EA）, X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy（XPS）, and scanning electron microscopy（SEM）, respectively. The coating morphology was found to be closely related to the surface area and surface functional groups of MAC. For a raw MAC which contained a variety of oxygenic groups, HNO3 treatment enhanced the relative amount of highly oxidized groups such as carboxyl and carbonates, which disfavored the deposition of silver particles. By contrast, Na OH treatment significantly improved the amount of carbonyl groups, which in turn improved the deposition amount of silver. Importantly, lamella silver was produced on raw MAC while Na OH treatment resulted in granular particles because of the capping effect of carbonyl groups. At appropriate [Ag（NH3）2]NO3 concentrations, silver nanoparticles smaller than 100 nm were homogeneously dispersed on Na OH-treated MAC. The successful tuning of the size and morphology of silver coatings on MAC is promising for novel applications in air purification and for antibacterial or aesthetic purposes.