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Early shoot growth termination in Betula pendula is associated with the number of overwintering aphid eggs on boreal birches

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Abstract

Many autumn migrating and phloem-feeding insects, like aphids, use leaf reflectance to distinguish senescing foliage. They consume resources in autumn and lay eggs that hatch in spring when trees need phloem nutrients for developing leaves. The herbivores may thus drive the evolution of tree senescence and autumn leaf colours. In accordance with this, the yellowing birch leaves attract aphids (Euceraphis betulae) and the genotypic variation in the timing of autumn leaf colouration is associated with the abundance of oviparous wingless female aphids in a natural Betula pendula population. Currently, however, there are no published studies investigating the potential association of autumn senescence and the number of overwintering aphid eggs. We examined a local B. pendula population in 2001 and 2002 for genotypic differences in the timing of shoot growth termination and for the abundance of overwintering birch aphid eggs. There were heritable differences in the timing of shoot growth termination among B. pendula genotypes. The genotypes that terminated shoot growth early had higher aphid egg loads after a short but not after a long autumn. We suggest that this is because the egg laying period was cut off due to a rather sudden and substantial change in the temperature in the shorter autumn. We are the first to find genotypic differences associated with the overwintering offspring of autumn-migrating aphids on a widely distributed temperate broadleaved tree. As shoot growth termination directly precedes leaf senescence, autumn-migrating aphids may have an additional potential to influence indirectly but significantly the onset of autumn leaf senescence at an evolutionary scale.

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Acknowledgments

We thank the Punkaharju Research Unit of the Finnish Forest Research Institute for facilities and help. Hanni Sikanen, Mari Tuominen and Pirkko Pasanen are thanked for the field assistance, Boy Possen for digging quickly up the long term weather data for us and Simcha Lev-Yadun and anonymous reviewers for many instructive comments on the earlier versions of the paper. This study was supported by the Academy of Finland, and funding granted to T.S. by Kone and Niemi foundations.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Biology, University of Eastern Finland, PL 111, 80101, Joensuu, Finland

    Tarja Silfver & Elina Oksanen

  2. Section of Environmental Ecology, Department of Environmental Sciences, University of Helsinki, Niemenkatu 73, 15140, Lahti, Finland

    Aki Sinkkonen

  3. Vantaa Research Unit, The Finnish Forest Research Institute, 01301, Vantaa, Finland

    Matti Rousi

  4. Institute of Environmental Sciences, Kazan Federal University, Kremlevskaya 18, 420008, Kazan, Russia

    Aki Sinkkonen

Authors
  1. Tarja Silfver
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  2. Aki Sinkkonen
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  3. Elina Oksanen
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  4. Matti Rousi
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Tarja Silfver.

Appendix

Appendix

See Fig. 5.

Fig. 5
figure 5

Daily minimum temperatures from first of September in 2001 and 2002 at Kotila weather station in Punkaharju, Finland. Large black dots mark the beginning of thermal autumn and large white dots the beginning of thermal winter

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Silfver, T., Sinkkonen, A., Oksanen, E. et al. Early shoot growth termination in Betula pendula is associated with the number of overwintering aphid eggs on boreal birches. Evol Ecol 29, 157–167 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10682-014-9741-8

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10682-014-9741-8

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