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Ecological effects of aphid abundance, genotypic variation, and contemporary evolution on plants

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Abstract

Genetic variation and contemporary evolution within populations can shape the strength and nature of species interactions, but the relative importance of these forces compared to other ecological factors is unclear. We conducted a field experiment testing the effects of genotypic variation, abundance, and presence/absence of green peach aphids (Myzus persicae) on the growth, leaf nitrogen, and carbon of two plant species (Brassica napus and Solanum nigrum). Aphid genotype affected B. napus but not S. nigrum biomass explaining 20 and 7 % of the total variation, respectively. Averaging across both plant species, the presence/absence of aphids had a 1.6× larger effect size (Cohen’s d) than aphid genotype, and aphid abundance had the strongest negative effects on plant biomass explaining 29 % of the total variation. On B. napus, aphid genotypes had different effects on leaf nitrogen depending on their abundance. Aphids did not influence leaf nitrogen in S. nigrum nor leaf carbon in either species. We conducted a second experiment in the field to test whether contemporary evolution could affect plant performance. Aphid populations evolved in as little as five generations, but the rate and direction of this evolution did not consistently vary between plant species. On one host species (B. napus), faster evolving populations had greater negative effects on host plant biomass, with aphid evolutionary rate explaining 23 % of the variation in host plant biomass. Together, these results show that genetic variation and evolution in an insect herbivore can play important roles in shaping host plant ecology.

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Acknowledgments

We thank Chad Carter and the Lake Wheeler Field Laboratory staff for preparing and maintaining our field site. Aneil Agrawal, Spencer Barrett, Warren Booth, Hannah Burrack, Rob Dunn, Steve Frank, Fred Gould, Kevin Gross, Nick Haddad, George Kennedy, and Coby Schal provided helpful insight and advice. We thank Carole Saravitz and Janet Shurtleff at the NCSU Phytotron for help in growing plants. Pauline Fung and Pauline Wang at the Centre for the Analysis of Genome Evolution and Function conducted microsatellite fragment length analyses. Wil Bolin, Geoff Broadhead, Diego Carmona, Will Fields, Rose Grinnan, Erika Hersch-Green, Elizabeth Hassell, Susan Jaconis, Yvonne Ly, H. Cassi Myburg, W. Clifton Odell, Ashish Parmar, Bobby San Miguel, Frances Sivakoff, Dave Stephan, and Christina Thomsen provided assistance in the lab and the field. Brassica napus seeds were generously donated by Jim Davis (U. Idaho). Funding was provided by a National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship to N.E.T., NC State University, and NSERC Canada to M.T.J.J.

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  1. Nash E. Turley

    Present address: Department of Plant Biology, Michigan State University, 612 Wilson Road, Room 166, East Lansing, MI, 48824, USA

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  1. Department of Biology, University of Toronto Mississauga, 3359 Mississauga Road, Mississauga, ON, L5L 1C6, Canada

    Nash E. Turley & Marc T. J. Johnson

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Turley, N.E., Johnson, M.T.J. Ecological effects of aphid abundance, genotypic variation, and contemporary evolution on plants. Oecologia 178, 747–759 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00442-015-3276-8

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