Alexander W Marie, Rubin Benjamin D, McNeil Jeremy N
Department of Biology, Western University, London, ON N6A 5B7, Canada.
Insects. 2022 Mar 23;13(4):312. doi: 10.3390/insects13040312.
In fall, alate males of the potato aphid, (Thomas), migrate from their summer (secondary) host plants, such as potatoes, to primary host plants, such as roses, where they mate with wingless oviparae who produce the overwintering egg stage. Males are weak fliers and generally walk towards a pheromone source under windy conditions, so we tested the hypothesis that upwind walking behaviour in response to wind velocity would be affected by the volatile cues present. We compared male responses to the odour of a rugosa rose cutting alone and to the combination of host plant volatiles and the female sex pheromone under a range of wind speeds in a laboratory walking bioassay. The proportion of males responding decreased as the wind speed increased, but at all wind velocities, the responses to the combined odours were higher than to the host plant alone. However, at any given wind velocity, the speed at which responding aphids moved was not influenced by the odour source. These findings support the idea that host plant volatiles serve as long-distance cues for males and that the female sex pheromone is used once on the host plant.
秋季，马铃薯长管蚜（Thomas）的有翅雄蚜会从其夏季（次要）寄主植物，如马铃薯，迁移至主要寄主植物，如玫瑰，在那里它们与无翅产卵雌蚜交配，这些雌蚜会产下越冬卵。雄蚜飞行能力较弱，在有风的条件下通常会朝着信息素源行走，因此我们测试了这样一个假设：对风速做出反应的逆风行走行为会受到存在的挥发性线索的影响。在实验室行走生物测定中，我们比较了雄蚜在一系列风速下对单独的皱叶玫瑰插条气味以及寄主植物挥发物与雌性性信息素组合的反应。随着风速增加，做出反应的雄蚜比例下降，但在所有风速下，对混合气味的反应都高于对单独寄主植物气味的反应。然而，在任何给定风速下，做出反应的蚜虫移动速度不受气味源影响。这些发现支持了这样一种观点，即寄主植物挥发物作为雄蚜的远距离线索，而雌性性信息素在寄主植物上仅被使用一次。
