Pan Huipeng, Preisser Evan L, Su Qi, Jiao Xiaoguo, Xie Wen, Wang Shaoli, Wu Qingjun, Zhang Youjun
Department of Entomology, South China Agricultural University, Guangzhou, China, Key Laboratory of Bio-Pesticide Innovation and Application, Engineering Technology Research Center of Agricultural Pest Biocontrol of Guangdong Province, Guangzhou, China.
Department of Plant Protection, Institute of Vegetables and Flowers, Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Beijing, China.
PLoS One. 2016 Dec 28;11(12):e0169142. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0169142. eCollection 2016.
Interspecific competition between herbivores is widely recognized as an important determinant of community structure. Although researchers have identified a number of factors capable of altering competitive interactions, few studies have addressed the influence of neighboring plant species. If adaptation to/ epigenetic effects of an herbivore's natal host plant alter its performance on other host plants, then interspecific herbivore interactions may play out differently in heterogeneous and homogenous plant communities. We tested wether the natal host plant of a whitefly population affected interactions between the Middle-east Asia Minor 1 (MEAM1) and Mediterranean (MED) cryptic species of the whitefly Bemisia tabaci by rearing the offspring of a cabbage-derived MEAM1 population and a poinsettia-derived MED population together on three different host plants: cotton, poinsettia, and cabbage. We found that MED dominated on poinsettia and that MEAM1 dominated on cabbage, results consistent with previous research. MED also dominated when reared with MEAM1 on cotton, however, a result at odds with multiple otherwise-similar studies that reared both species on the same natal plant. Our work provides evidence that natal plants affect competitive interactions on another plant species, and highlights the potential importance of neighboring plant species on herbivore community composition in agricultral systems.
食草动物之间的种间竞争被广泛认为是群落结构的一个重要决定因素。尽管研究人员已经确定了一些能够改变竞争相互作用的因素，但很少有研究探讨邻近植物物种的影响。如果食草动物的原生寄主植物的适应性/表观遗传效应改变了其在其他寄主植物上的表现，那么种间食草动物相互作用在异质和同质植物群落中的表现可能会有所不同。我们通过将源自卷心菜的中东-小亚细亚1型（MEAM1）烟粉虱种群和源自一品红的地中海（MED）烟粉虱隐性物种的后代共同饲养在三种不同的寄主植物上，来测试烟粉虱种群的原生寄主植物是否会影响中东-小亚细亚1型（MEAM1）和地中海（MED）烟粉虱隐性物种之间的相互作用：棉花、一品红和卷心菜。我们发现MED在一品红上占主导地位，而MEAM1在卷心菜上占主导地位，这一结果与之前的研究一致。当MED与MEAM1一起在棉花上饲养时，MED也占主导地位，然而，这一结果与多项在同一原生植物上饲养这两个物种的其他类似研究结果不一致。我们的研究提供了证据，证明原生植物会影响在另一种植物物种上的竞争相互作用，并突出了邻近植物物种对农业系统中食草动物群落组成的潜在重要性。
