Ecological Entomology (2016) 41, 147-156

Xiang-Shun Hu, Xiao-Feng Liu, Thomas James Ridsdill-Smith, Thomas Thieme, Hui-Yan Zhao and Tong-Xian Liu (2016)
Effects of maternal diet on offspring fitness in the bird cherry-oat aphid
Ecological Entomology 41 (2), 147-156
Abstract: 1. Maternal and offspring diet effects on life-history traits of the bird cherry-oat aphid Rhopalosiphum padi were tested on three wheat varieties. Using nine reciprocal combinations of wheat varieties, the effects of previous experience (maternal diet effect) on the aphid's response to resistant and susceptible varieties (offspring diet effect) were tested. Batis was susceptible, and Xiaoyan22 and Ww2730 were both resistant, but with different mechanisms.
2. Aphids produced the most alatae in the treatments with the most resistant maternal diet variety Xiaoyan22. The fecundity (F) and intrinsic rate of increase (r_m) of these alatae were at their greatest in the most resistant offspring diet variety, but these traits were not influenced in the apterae.
3. There were significant interactions in the alatae production and apterae life-history traits, such as r_m, development time, weight gain, and mean relative growth rate, between the maternal and offspring diet varieties. The interactions in apterae responses between varieties, some of which were reciprocal, indicated phenotypic plasticity in these parthenogenetic aphids.
4. Rhopalosiphum padi produced more alatae on the most resistant variety; the alatae would disperse and were more fecund. The growth responses of the apterae showed phenotypic plasticity to the different combinations of maternal and offspring diet varieties. The phenotypic plasticity would allow R. padi to better utilise the variable environments represented by the small wheat plots of different varieties in China.
(The abstract is excluded from the Creative Commons licence and has been copied with permission by the publisher.)
Link to article at publishers website
Database assignments for author(s): Hui-Yan Zhao, Tong Xian Liu, Thomas Thieme, Thomas James Ridsdill-Smith

Research topic(s) for pests/diseases/weeds:
general biology - morphology - evolution
resistance/tolerance/defence of host

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Pest and/or beneficial records:

Beneficial	Pest/Disease/Weed	Crop/Product	Country	Quarant.
	Rhopalosiphum padi	Wheat (Triticum)