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Aphids Pick Their Poison: Selective Sequestration of Plant Chemicals Affects Host Plant Use in a Specialist Herbivore

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Abstract

In some plant-insect interactions, specialist herbivores exploit the chemical defenses of their food plant to their own advantage. Brassica plants produce glucosinolates that are broken down into defensive toxins when tissue is damaged, but the specialist aphid, Brevicoryne brassicae, uses these chemicals against its own natural enemies by becoming a “walking mustard-oil bomb”. Analysis of glucosinolate concentrations in plant tissue and associated aphid colonies reveals that not only do aphids sequester glucosinolates, but they do so selectively. Aphids specifically accumulate sinigrin to high concentrations while preferentially excreting a structurally similar glucosinolate, progoitrin. Surveys of aphid infestation in wild populations of Brassica oleracea show that this pattern of sequestration and excretion maps onto host plant use. The probability of aphid infestation decreases with increasing concentrations of progoitrin in plants. Brassica brassicae, therefore, appear to select among food plants according to plant secondary metabolite profiles, and selectively store only some compounds that are used against their own enemies. The results demonstrate chemical and behavioral mechanisms that help to explain evidence of geographic patterns and evolutionary dynamics in Brassica-aphid interactions.

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Acknowledgments

The authors thank Peter Behrens for access to Prussia Cove field sites. NG was funded by the European Social Fund, the British Mass Spectrometry Society, and DH by the Natural Environment Research Council.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Centre for Ecology and Conservation, Biosciences, College of Life and Environmental Sciences, University of Exeter, Penryn Campus, TR10 9EZ, Penryn, UK

    Nicole A. Goodey & Dave J. Hodgson

  2. Biosciences, College of Life and Environmental Sciences, University of Exeter, Exeter, EX4 4QD, UK

    Hannah V. Florance & Nicholas Smirnoff

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  1. Nicole A. Goodey
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  2. Hannah V. Florance
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  3. Nicholas Smirnoff
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  4. Dave J. Hodgson
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Correspondence to Dave J. Hodgson.

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Goodey, N.A., Florance, H.V., Smirnoff, N. et al. Aphids Pick Their Poison: Selective Sequestration of Plant Chemicals Affects Host Plant Use in a Specialist Herbivore. J Chem Ecol 41, 956–964 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10886-015-0634-2

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10886-015-0634-2

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