Biofoam of Spittlebug, (Walker): Preferential Sites, Temperature Regulation, Chemical Composition and Antimicrobial Activity.

The foam produced by nymphs of on eleven different host plants belonging to eight families on St. Xavier's College campus in India was studied over five months. The chemical composition and antimicrobial activity of these biofoams were investigated. The results revealed that preferred and for laying their eggs and producing foam, over the other tested plants. produce their foam on either nodes or internodes on monocotyledons (30%) ( < 0.05), whereas on dicotyledons, they produce more foam on the stems (63.8%) than on the leaves (6.2%) ( < 0.01). The number of nymphs in each piece of foam from varied from 1 to 3 (mean = 1.8 per plant). They produced their foam (5.7 to 45.2 cm) from the ground level on a plant. The length and breadth of a piece of foam ranged from 1.0 to 3.9 cm and 0.6 to 4.7 cm, respectively. The foam tended to be cooler than the environment. Qualitative profiling showed that the foam consists of carbohydrates, including maltose; trypsin; amino acids; protease. The foam was also analyzed using a spectrophotometer, Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR), gas chromatography-mass spectroscopy (GC-MS), and high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC). The antimicrobial activity of the biofoam was the greatest against , the growth of which was reduced by 55.9 ± 3.9%, suggesting that the foam could be used as an antimicrobial product. However, no activities were observed against and .