Agricultural Experimental Station Río Piedras, Crops and AgroEnvironmental Sciences Department, University of Puerto Rico, 1193, Calle Guayacan, San Juan, PR 00926, USA.
Exp Appl Acarol. 2012 Aug;57(3-4):373-9. doi: 10.1007/s10493-012-9551-z. Epub 2012 Apr 5.
Molecular detection of predation by identifying prey markers in the digestive tract of predators has developed into a powerful tool to assess predator-prey systems in which diet identification is too time consuming or impossible. Here we explore its utility for detecting predation of the pest mite Raoiella indica Hirst by the predatory mite Amblyseius largoensis Muma, taking advantage of the color the predator acquires after eating this mite to cross-reference our results. For this, a ~410 bp segment of the cytochrome c oxidase subunit I (COI) mitochondrial gene marker specific for the subfamily Tetranychoidea was used. Amblyseius largoensis that had recently eaten were collected from greenhouse colonies containing both mites, and isolated from any other food source. Predator mites were taken for fingerprinting at 24, 48, 72 and 96 h of starving after collection, and the same process was repeated a second time, offering pollen as an alternative food source to see whether detection changed. Lastly, a sampling trial was conducted in the greenhouse, in which mites were collected regardless of their color and frozen immediately for fingerprinting. Raoiella indica DNA was detected for 48 h on starving predators, and for 96 h on those who had eaten pollen. The segment was detected in 26 % of the samples collected on the trial. This technique needs refinement specific for this system, but the results obtained here confirm that it could turn into a very useful tool for assessing aspects of this predator-prey system.
通过在捕食者的消化道中识别猎物标记来检测捕食行为，这种方法已经发展成为评估捕食者-猎物系统的有力工具，特别是在鉴定食物组成太耗时或不可能的情况下。在这里，我们利用捕食者在捕食这种害螨后获得的颜色，来探索其在检测害虫螨 Raoiella indica Hirst 被捕食性螨 Amblyseius largoensis Muma 捕食中的效用，以此来交叉参考我们的结果。为此，我们使用了一段约 410bp 的细胞色素 c 氧化酶亚基 I（COI）线粒体基因标记，该标记特异性针对 Tetranychoidea 亚科。从含有这两种螨虫的温室群体中收集到最近捕食过的 Amblyseius largoensis，并将其与任何其他食物源隔离。在收集后 24、48、72 和 96 小时，饥饿的捕食螨被用于进行指纹分析，并且重复了相同的过程，提供花粉作为替代食物源，以观察检测结果是否发生变化。最后，在温室中进行了一次抽样试验，无论螨虫的颜色如何，都将其收集并立即冷冻进行指纹分析。在饥饿的捕食者身上，Raoiella indica 的 DNA 在 48 小时后被检测到，而在那些吃了花粉的捕食者身上则在 96 小时后被检测到。在试验中采集的 26%的样本中检测到了该片段。这种技术需要针对该系统进行具体的改进，但这里获得的结果证实，它可以成为评估这种捕食者-猎物系统的一个非常有用的工具。
