Having an estimated production of 388 million tons in 2017 (FAO 2019), potato is one of the world’s most important food crops, along with rice, wheat, and maize.  Potato plants can adapt to different agricultural environments and are widely grown over many latitudes and elevations (Douches et al. 2004).  In addition to its consumption in Europe, North America and countries of the former Soviet Union, potato is now also popularized in Africa and Asia, especially in the developing countries including China and India.  Since 2015, China has been boosting potato production to become the fourth major crop produced in the country following rice, wheat and maize (Zhang et al. 2017; Xu et al. 2019).  And developing potato as the staple food was also included by Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs of China in its important agenda.  Further improvement of potato production globally could promote the sustainable development of agriculture and safeguard world’s food security in the near future.
Insect pests are one of the major constraints to commercial production of potato in the world.  For over
8 000 years since its domestication in the central Andes, the potato has been plagued by a number of serious insect pests (Radcliffe 1982).  These include some of the most prolific and adaptable species known to human.  If left uncontrolled, the insect pests can completely destroy the affected crops.  With the rapid development of international trade, many insect herbivores of crops have spread across the continents along with agricultural products, and soon outbroke and became serious pests in their colonized areas (Carrillo et al. 2019).  To deal with the potato insect pest problems, currently several issues remain to be solved: (1) Know these insect pests.  A deep decoding of the biology and ecology of the potato insect pests is the basis for developing counter-measures to them.  (2) Know how the insects come and where they will go.  Figuring out the spreading of the invasive insects of potato can help achieve a better prevention and slow down their damage risks.  (3) Know their helpers during the harm to crops.  The co-occurrence of insects and plant pathogens in potato fields requires the raveling of how they interacts.  (4) Know the integrative management strategies.  Insect management in commercial potato production is heavily reliant on synthetic backlash and causing environmental pollution, and thus new strategies are needed to achieve a more ecological control of these pests. 
As guest editors, we are pleased to present 12 papers about the biology, ecology and management of major insect pests damaging on the potato crop in this special focus of the Journal of Integrative Agriculture.  We hope to improve our understanding of insect pests of potato and provide guidance for countries facing the IPM of those pests worldwide.  The 12 papers are organized into the following four sections.
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In insects, the sense of smell is mainly mediated by olfactory receptors (Ors). Olfactory co-receptor (Orco), which is coexpressed with the Ors in almost all olfactory receptor neurons (ORNs), is demonstrated to be an essential component in the insect olfactory system. It can be potential target for developing novel olfactory-disruption strategy to control insect pests. In this study, two full-length cDNA sequences encoding Orcos (CmedOrco and ChsupOrco) were cloned from two Lepidopteran rice pests, the rice leaffolder, Cnaphalocrocis medinalis and the rice striped stem borer, Chilo suppressalis. The amino acid sequences of CmedOrco and ChsupOrco showed high similarity to the previously identified Orcos from other insect species. Bioinformatic prediction and cellular immunofluorescence indicated that CmedOrco and ChsupOrco were both seventransmembrane proteins with intracellular N-termini and extracellular C-termini. mRNA expression levels of the two Orcos were much higher in male and female antennae than those in non-olfactory tissues, and the ChsupOrco transcripts reached a peak level in adults compared to other life stages. Our results provide a foundation from which it will be possible to elucidate the roles of Orco in moth olfaction and for the development of environment-friendly management strategies of these two rice insect pests.