Database on diagnosis of arthropod diseases in the Internet of the Julius Kühn-Institute

A database on diagnosis of diseases of insects and other arthropods is available in a German and English version at http://arthropodenkrankheiten. jki.bund.de. It is based on 55 years of diagnostic investigations of living, diseased, or dead arthropods of about 450 species at the ‘Institute for Biological Control’ in Darmstadt, Germany. Results of 1951 accessions with several thousands of diagnosed specimens from 1953 to 2008 are presented. The diagnosed pathogens belong to six groups: viruses, bacteria including rickettsiae, fungi, microsporidia (recently assigned to fungi), protists, and nematodes. The database will be updated regularly.