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Does Plant Cultivar Difference Modify the Bottom-Up Effects of Resource Limitation on Plant-Insect Herbivore Interactions?

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Abstract

Variation in resource input to plants triggers bottom-up effects on plant-insect herbivore interactions. However, variation in plant intrinsic traits in response to resource availability may modify the bottom-up effects. Furthermore, the consequences also may depend on the feeding strategy of insect herbivores belonging to different feeding guilds. We evaluated the performance of two insect herbivores from distinct feeding guilds, the leaf miner Tuta absoluta and the phloem feeder Bemisia tabaci. We offered the insects two tomato cultivars growing under optimal nitrogen input vs. nitrogen limitation, or under optimal water input vs. water limitation. We found that: (i) the two cultivars differed in their responses to nitrogen and water limitation by regulating primary (leaf-gas exchange related parameters, leaf nitrogen content, and leaf C/N ratio) and secondary metabolism (main defensive compounds: glycoalkaloids); (ii) for both plant cultivars, nitrogen or water limitation significantly affected T. absoluta survival and development, while B. tabaci survival was affected only by nitrogen limitation; and surprisingly (iii) plant cultivar differences did not modify the negative bottom-up effects of resource limitation on the two insect herbivores. In conclusion, the negative effects of resource limitation cascaded up to insect herbivores even though plant cultivars exhibited various adaptive traits to resource limitation.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the Chinese government (PhD fellowship to PH) and fund from FP7-PEOPLE-2012-IRSES, project ASCII [grant number: 318246]. We thank Philippe Bearez for technical assistance during the experiment, Vincent Calcagno and Louise Van Oudenhove de Saint Gery for suggestions on data analyses, the platform of analytical biochemistry (Sophia-Agrobiotech Institute Research; INRA), and the forest department of INRA Avignon (Ecologie des Forêts Méditerranéennes) for lending their Li-Cor equipment to us.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. INRA (French National Institute for Agricultural Research) Univ. Nice Sophia Antipolis, CNRS, UMR 1355-7254 Institut Sophia Agrobiotech, 400 route des chappes, 06903, Sophia-Antipolis, France

    Peng Han, Nicolas Desneux, Aurelie Seassau, Eric Wajnberg, Edwige Amiens-Desneux & Anne-Violette Lavoir

  2. College of Plant Science & Technology, Huazhong Agricultural University, Wuhan, 430070, China

    Peng Han

  3. Institut de Chimie de Nice, UMR CNRS 7272, Université Nice Sophia-Antipolis, Parc Valrose, F-06108, Nice, France

    Thomas Michel

  4. UMR1115 PSH (Plantes et Systèmes de culture Horticoles), INRA, F-84000, Avignon, France

    Jacques Le Bot

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  1. Peng Han
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Correspondence to Peng Han.

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Han, P., Desneux, N., Michel, T. et al. Does Plant Cultivar Difference Modify the Bottom-Up Effects of Resource Limitation on Plant-Insect Herbivore Interactions?. J Chem Ecol 42, 1293–1303 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10886-016-0795-7

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