Performance of nymphs and adults of Piezodorus guildinii (Westwood) (Hemiptera: Pentatomidae) on soybean pods at different developmental stages

Abstract

A study was conducted in the laboratory to test the suitability of soybean [Glycine max (L.) Merrill] pods at different phenological stages of development (R3-R8) on the performance of nymphs and adults of the small green stink bug

Selection of Soybean Pods by the Stink Bugs,Nezara viridulaandPiezodorus guildinii

“…Olfactometer assays showed no evidence in support of the hypothesis that N. viridula and P. guildinii can detect and discriminate their food following volatile cues emitted by food source, even though the experiments used soybean pods at developmental stages that were demonstrated to best meet nutritional requirements of these stink bugs (Panizzi and Alves 1993; Oliveira and Panizzi 2003). However, it is not possible to determine whether soybean pods do not release volatiles at all, or whether the concentration of volatiles is too low for detection by stink bugs.…”

“…Our results indicate that the pod stages more preferred by the nymphs (mature stages) give the worst values of performance. Feeding on these pod stages negatively affects adult survivorship, weight gain, lipid content, and reproductive performance, and only 30–40% of the nymphs reached adulthood (Panizzi and Alves 1993; Oliveira and Panizzi 2003). Other factors must have had a stronger attractive effect.…”

“…Insects (fifth instar nymphs, female adults, and male adults) were placed individually in the main branch of the olfactometer, and 30 grams of soybean pods (R6 for P. guildinii , R7 for N. viridula ) were placed in one of the secondary arms (test arm), while the other secondary arm remained empty as the control (control arm). These phenological stages were selected because they were found to maximize N. viridula (Panizzi and Alves 1993) and P. guildinii (Oliveira and Panizzi 2003) performance, respectively. Purified air by activated charcoal was blown at a rate of 200 mL/min by a small air pump mounted below the main arm.…”

“…(Hemiptera: Pentatomidae) are the most important stink bugs, due to their economic impact on soybean production (Massoni and Frana 2005). P. guildinii is a neotropical species (Panizzi and Slansky 1985) that feeds on soybean throughout the production areas of Brazil (Oliveira and Panizzi 2003) and Argentina (Massoni and Frana 2005). N. viridula originated from eastern Africa, but has been introduced into tropical and subtropical regions of Europe, Asia, Australia, Africa, North and South America (Čokl and Millar 2009).…”

“…In laboratory experiments, Panizzi and Alves (1993) found that N. viridula had higher survival, body weight, fecundity, and longevity when they were fed with pods from plants at full seed and initial physiological maturity stages (Fehr and Caviness 1977) compared to other reproductive phenological stages. For P. guildinii , Oliveira and Panizzi (2003) found significantly better performance when pods from plants at pod-filling and full seed stages (Fehr and Caviness 1977) were used as food. We hypothesized these significant effects on stink bugs’ development and growth represented a selection pressure to evolve preference ranking for feeding on developmental stages of soybean pods consistent with the performance ranking in life history traits.…”