Investigating plant chemicals and trade-offs between adult preference and larval performance of the rice water weevil

Abstract Herbivores use plant chemicals for host-plant selection to maximize their own and/or offspring performance. Since host plants that are optimal for mother and offspring are often different and spatially/temporally separated, how plant chemicals affect trade-offs between adult preference and larval performance remains unclear. We found that adults of the rice water weevil (Lissorhoptrus oryzophilus), one of the most important pests on rice in the world, preferred volatiles from barnyard grass over rice, tended to feed and oviposit on barnyard grass compared with rice. In contrast, larvae performed better on rice roots than on barnyard grass roots. Chemical analysis further show that rice roots had higher nitrogen and soluble sugar but lower lignin and cellhouse contents than barnyard grass. Together, these results suggest that violate, nutritive and defensive chemicals could jointly determine trade-offs of the adult preference and larval performance on these two hosts. As developing chemical-based technology is one of the main approaches for control of pest insects, our findings may also contribute to the future efforts for management of the rice water weevil.

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Chromosome Unipolar Division and Low Expression of Tws May Cause Parthenogenesis of Rice Water Weevil (Lissorhoptrus oryzophilus Kuschel)

Insects ◽

10.3390/insects12040278 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 12 (4) ◽

pp. 278

Author(s):

Pengcheng Wang ◽

Fangyuan Yang ◽

Zhuo Ma ◽

Runzhi Zhang

Keyword(s):

Drosophila Melanogaster ◽

Quantitative Pcr ◽

Ovarian Tissue ◽

Expression Patterns ◽

Meiotic Spindle ◽

Lissorhoptrus Oryzophilus ◽

Rice Water Weevil ◽

Rice Water ◽

Beijing China ◽

Low Expression

Rice water weevil (RWW) is divided into two types of population, triploid parthenogenesis and diploid bisexual reproduction. In this study, we explored the meiosis of triploid parthenogenesis RWW (Shangzhuang Town, Haidian District, Beijing, China) by marking the chromosomes and microtubules of parthenogenetic RWW oocytes via immunostaining. The immunostaining results show that there is a canonical meiotic spindle formed in the triploid parthenogenetic RWW oocytes, but chromosomes segregate at only one pole, which means that there is a chromosomal unipolar division during the oogenesis of the parthenogenetic RWW. Furthermore, we cloned the conserved sequences of parthenogenetic RWW REC8 and Tws, and designed primers based on the parthenogenetic RWW sequence to detect expression patterns by quantitative PCR (Q-PCR). Q-PCR results indicate that the expression of REC8 and Tws in ovarian tissue of bisexual Drosophila melanogaster is 0.98 and 10,000.00 times parthenogenetic RWW, respectively (p < 0.01). The results show that Tws had low expression in parthenogenetic RWW ovarian tissue, and REC8 was expressed normally. Our study suggests that the chromosomal unipolar division and deletion of Tws may cause parthenogenesis in RWW.

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