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Are aphid parasitoids from mild winter climates losing their winter diapause?

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Abstract

Temperature is both a selective pressure and a modulator of the diapause expression in insects from temperate regions. Thus, with climate warming, an alteration of the response to seasonal changes is expected, either through genetic adaptations to novel climatic conditions or phenotypic plasticity. Since the 1980s in western France, the winter guild of aphid parasitoids (Hymenoptera: Braconidae) in cereal fields has been made up of two species: Aphidius rhopalosiphi and Aphidius matricariae. The recent activity of two other species, Aphidius avenae and Aphidius ervi, during the winter months suggests that a modification of aphid parasitoid overwintering strategies has taken place within the guild. In this study, we first performed a field survey in the winter of 2014/15 to assess levels of parasitoid diapause incidence in agrosystems. Then, we compared the capacity of the four parasitoid species to enter winter diapause under nine different photoperiods and temperature conditions in the laboratory. As predicted, historically winter-active species (A. rhopalosiphi and A. matricariae) never entered diapause, whereas the species more recently active during winter (A. avenae and A. ervi) did enter diapause but at a low proportion (maximum of 13.4 and 11.2%, respectively). These results suggest rapid shifts over the last three decades in the overwintering strategies of aphid parasitoids in Western France, probably due to climate warming. This implies that diapause can be replaced by active adult overwintering, with potential consequences for species interactions, insect community composition, ecosystem functioning, and natural pest control.

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Acknowledgements

This study was funded by the French Région Bretagne (Grant ARED awarded to KT) and by the Canada Research Chair in Biological Control awarded to JB. All field and laboratory works conducted in this study comply with French and Canadian laws. All applicable institutional and/or national guidelines for the care and use of animals were followed. We thank the handling editor and one anonymous reviewer for their valued comments on an earlier version of this manuscript. We are grateful to Jimmy Debuire, Stéphanie Llopis, Valérie Briand, and Josée Doyon for technical support and Paul K. Abram for English revision.

Author contribution statement

This work is part of the Ph.D. thesis of the first author. All authors conceived and designed the experiments. KT performed the experiments and conducted field work. KT analyzed the data and wrote the manuscript. All co-authors substantially contributed to revisions.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. UMR 6553 Ecobio, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, Université de Rennes 1, 263 Avenue du Général Leclerc, 35042, Rennes, France

    Kévin Tougeron, Cécile Le Lann & Joan van Baaren

  2. Université Bretagne Loire, Cité Internationale, 1 place Paul Ricœur, 35044, Rennes, France

    Kévin Tougeron, Cécile Le Lann & Joan van Baaren

  3. Département de Sciences Biologiques, Institut de Recherche en Biologie Végétale, Université de Montréal, 4101 rue Sherbrooke Est, Montréal, Quebec, H1X 2B2, Canada

    Kévin Tougeron & Jacques Brodeur

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  1. Kévin Tougeron
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  2. Cécile Le Lann
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  4. Joan van Baaren
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Correspondence to Kévin Tougeron.

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Additional information

Communicated by Roland A. Brandl.

Using fresh data and both field and laboratory experiments, we present new evidence of climate change impacts on overwintering strategies in parasitoid wasp species from mild winter areas.

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Tougeron, K., Le Lann, C., Brodeur, J. et al. Are aphid parasitoids from mild winter climates losing their winter diapause?. Oecologia 183, 619–629 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00442-016-3770-7

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