Biotic Contamination of Food and Environments

Acquisition of knowledge to carry out a pest management control of food and environments for food preparation. Pests as cause of bother or as vectors of pathogenic micro-organisms. Insect morphology: tegument, head, chest, abdomen. Muscular, nervous, digestive, respiratory, circulatory, excretory, secretory, reproductive system. Development post-embryonic. Biology insect food and environments for food preparation: Collembola, Thysanura, Psocoptera, Blattodea, Orthoptera, Lepidoptera (Pyralidae, Tinedae, Gelechidae), Diptera (Muscidae, Sarcophagidae, Calliphoridae, Piophilidae, Drosophylidae), Coleoptera (Curculionidae, Bostrychidae, Anobidae, Silvanidae, Bruchidae, Tenebrionidae), Imenoptera: (Formicidae, Vespidae, Apidae). Mites: features of morphology, anatomy and post-embryonic development. Development and control conditions. Development and control conditions. Prevention from pests nesting. Different food packaging resistance to insects attack: examining a hole in food packaging to determine infestation origin. Monitoring: direct visual examination, sieving, biological method. Filth-test method of analysis to detect arthropod fragments in a food: flours, pasta, honey, fruit juices, mushrooms, dried vegetables. Methods of analysis of infestations in environments: food traps, light traps, pheromone traps. How to use monitoring data. Physical control insect: controlled atmospheres, low temperatures and vacuum. Insecticides: legislative references, formulated types, toxicity, knockdown effect, persistence, pyrethrum and pyrethroids, neonicotinoids, insect growth regulators and fumigants. Morphology and biology and ethology: Mus mus, Rattus rattus and R. norvegicus. Direct and indirect damages. Prevention and monitoring. Species detection, mechanical and chemical methods and results control. Outlines of pest management control of food and environments for food preparation. Legislative references and considerations on Article 5- 283/1962.

Postharvest alterations and loss extent (physiological alterations, damages due to physical, chemical and biological conditions or parasites; losses from harvest to market). Outlines of plant pathology (the concept of disease in plants, classification of plant diseases, the cycle of disease, host-pathogen relationships). Pathogens in post harvest diseases (phytopathogenic fungi and bacteria, their pathogenesis). Main genera of fungi and bacteria that causes post harvest losses. Mycotoxins and mycotoxicoses. Control of postharvest diseases (physical, chemical and biological methods; integrated control). Food residues, legal restrictions and analytical methods.