Indirect interactions in tomato attacked by Tetranychus evansi

• Ano de defesa: 2015
• Autor(a) principal: Lemos, Felipe de
• Tipo de documento: Tese
• Tipo de acesso: Acesso aberto
• Idioma: eng
• Instituição de defesa: Universidade Federal de Viçosa
• Palavras-chave em Português: Tetranychus evansi; Ácaro vermelho; Tomate - Resistência a doenças e pragas; Entomologia Agrícola
• Link de acesso: http://www.locus.ufv.br/handle/123456789/8352

Plants employs an array of direct and indirect strategies of defence against herbivores. Direct defence acts upon the herbivores, while indirect defence benefits the natural enemies of the herbivores. To maximize their fitness, plants under attack of herbivores are predicted to simultaneously make use of both direct and indirect defence. However, some herbivores have adapted to cope with plant defences. The red spider mite Tetranychus evansi was found to manipulate the direct defence of tomato plants to their own benefit. In this thesis, I focus on investigating indirect interactions between tomato plants attacked by T. evansi and their natural enemies, although some direct interactions between plants and herbivores and herbivores and predators were also studied. First, I studied the influence of host plant on the unsuitability of T. evansi as food for the predatory mite Phytoseiulus persimilis. I observed that this unsuitability was not related with the herbivore’s host plant. The negative effect of T. evansi on the performance of predatory mites was reversible, indicating the absence of long- term toxic effects of prey on the predator. In the second chapter, I studied how T. evansi interferes with the indirect defence of tomato plants through induction of volatiles and attraction of predatory mites. I observed that damage by T. evansi induces the production of volatile organic compounds that are different from those present in the attractive blend of volatiles induced by Tetranychus urticae. The attractiveness of odours from tomato plants infested with T. evansi to predatory mites (P. persimilis, Phytoseiulus longipes and Phytoseiulus macropilis) varied with the density of mites on the plant. In the third chapter of this thesis, I explored the capacity of the predatory mite P. macropilis to learn to associate odours from plants infested with T. evansi with prey quality. Juveniles of P. macropilis were show to perform poorly when fed with eggs of T. evansi. However, adults of P. macropilis did not avoid odours from plants infested with T. evansi, even after four consecutive days of experience with the poor quality prey. In conclusion, these results confirm the remarkable ability of T. evansi to manipulate the plant defence and circumvent the threat of natural enemies. The indirect interaction between predatory mites and tomato plants infested with T. evansi is impaired by the differential induction of volatiles that mislead the predatory mites.