Department of Entomology, Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA, 16802, USA.
Department of Physiology, Instituto de Biociências, Universidade de São Paulo, Butanta, 05508090, São Paulo, Brazil.
Nat Commun. 2020 Mar 4;11(1):1184. doi: 10.1038/s41467-020-14953-2.
Vector-borne pathogens are known to alter the phenotypes of their primary hosts and vectors, with implications for disease transmission as well as ecology. Here we show that a plant virus, barley yellow dwarf virus, increases the surface temperature of infected host plants (by an average of 2 °C), while also significantly enhancing the thermal tolerance of its aphid vector Rhopalosiphum padi (by 8 °C). This enhanced thermal tolerance, which was associated with differential upregulation of three heat-shock protein genes, allowed aphids to occupy higher and warmer regions of infected host plants when displaced from cooler regions by competition with a larger aphid species, R. maidis. Infection thereby led to an expansion of the fundamental niche of the vector. These findings show that virus effects on the thermal biology of hosts and vectors can influence their interactions with one another and with other, non-vector organisms.
虫媒病原体已知会改变其主要宿主和媒介的表型，这对疾病传播和生态学都有影响。在这里，我们表明一种植物病毒，大麦黄花叶病毒，会增加感染宿主植物的表面温度（平均升高 2°C），同时还显著提高了其蚜虫媒介禾谷缢管蚜的热耐受性（升高 8°C）。这种增强的热耐受性与三种热休克蛋白基因的差异上调有关，使蚜虫在与较大的蚜虫物种 R. maidis 竞争而从较冷的区域被排挤出来时，能够占据感染宿主植物的更高和更温暖的区域。感染从而导致了媒介的基础生态位的扩大。这些发现表明，病毒对宿主和媒介热生物学的影响会影响它们彼此之间以及与其他非媒介生物之间的相互作用。
