Abstract
The coconut rhinoceros beetle, Oryctes rhinoceros L. (Insecta: Coleoptera: Scarabaeidae: Dynastinae) is one of the world's most important endemic and incessant pests of coconut (particularly in India and Southeast Asia), causing an estimated 10% yield loss in the crop. Various management strategies formulated and implemented to control this pest include bioagents, insecticide sprays, liquid formulations, pheromone traps, and botanical formulations. Also, potential microbial bioagents viz., Oryctes rhinoceros nudivirus (OrNV) and Metarhizium anisopliae have been implemented as biological control agents and this has led to a beneficial reduction of the pest population unless significant immigration occurs. To date, research and development activities are still on-going for the successful management of the pest; yet advances in understanding at the molecular level have been limited because basic genomic information is lacking for this cosmopolitan pest. Transcriptome approach has been proved extremely useful in finding potential genes for pest control. Transcriptome analysis aids in gaining insights into the transcriptional changes which occur during different developmental stages of an organism. We have performed RNA sequencing of certain different developmental stages of O. rhinoceros viz., early instar larva, late instar larva, pupa, and adult, in an Illumina HiSeq™ 2500 platform. Due to the unavailability of O. rhinoceros genome, the RNA-seq data generated were assembled de novo using Trinity and annotated following redundancy removal. A dataset of 87,451 transcripts, which resulted after redundancy removal, were annotated using the NCBI non-redundant (nr) protein and Uniprot databases. The data furnished could be used by others working in the development of pest management strategies, especially the identification of molecular targets for effective pest control. This information allows a better understanding of O. rhinoceros biology which would contribute to outlining a new generation of stage-specific, environmentally friendly pest management techniques.