Ant attendance of the cotton aphid is beneficial for okra plants: deciphering multitrophic interactions

Singh, Akanksha; Zytynska, Sharon E.; Hanna, Rachid; Weisser, Wolfgang W.

doi:10.1111/afe.12159

Cited by 9 publications

(13 citation statements)

References 46 publications

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“…However, ants are not always beneficial for aphids but can also act as predators (Billick, Hammer, Reithel, & Abbot, 2007;Singh, Zytynska, Hanna, & Weisser, 2016). In many aphid systems, both mutualistic ants and predators can be influenced by intraspecific variation in the host plant.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Additive effects of plant chemotype, mutualistic ants and predators on aphid performance and survival

et al. 2018

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Cascading effects in ecological systems acting across three or more trophic levels can be either of a resource‐based (bottom‐up) or natural enemy‐based (top‐down) nature. But, due to their complexity, these effects are often considered separately and their relative strength, acting simultaneously, remains unknown. In a semi‐natural field experiment using tansy (Tanacetum vulgare L.) and the specialised tansy‐aphid Metopeurum fuscoviride Stroyan as a model system, we compared the effects of four distinct plant chemotypes (i.e., bottom‐up), defined by the bouquet of their volatile terpenoids, on aphid population dynamics by manipulating the presence/absence of mutualistic ants and presence/absence of naturally occurring predators (i.e., top‐down). Predators reduced aphid abundance and colony survival but did not reduce initial growth rate due to a time‐lag until predators arrived on the plants. Ants directly benefited initial aphid growth rates and abundance, even in the absence of predators, but not the number of days an aphid colony persisted on the plant. Plant chemotype directly affected aphid growth rate and final abundances across the different plants and indirectly affected the abundances of tending ants and predators through effects on aphids. We found that tending ants were more abundant on one plant chemotype. Although ant abundance did not affect aphid population development, it became clear that ants had a preference towards aphids on certain chemotypes. However, a higher number of predators led to a lower number of aphids. The results confirm the importance of plant chemical variation, acting through multiple effects on many species in arthropod communities, and support results from field studies. In a natural population, with a diverse selection of host‐plant variants, aphid populations and their interacting species can therefore be structured at the level of an individual plant. Specialist aphids on patchily distributed host plants can exhibit metacommunity dynamics at very local scales. Plant within‐species variation within a local population is often ignored in metacommunity ecology, yet our work shows that this can have strong effects on insect–ant–natural enemy dynamics, and therefore, future research should incorporate this into current theory and experimental studies. A http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/1365-2435.13227/suppinfo is available for this article.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Additive effects of plant chemotype, mutualistic ants and predators on aphid performance and survival

et al. 2018

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“…Interestingly, ants are not always beneficial to aphids, as recently shown by Singh et al . () examining aphid–ant associations ( Ap. gossypii Glover and Pheidole dea Santschi, respectively) on okra, Abelmoschus esculentus (L.) Moench (Malvales: Malvaceae) in the field and under controlled screenhouse conditions in the Cameroons, West Africa.…”

Section: Categories Of Specialismsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Singh et al . (, p. 270) reported that ‘In the field, ants did not protect aphids from their natural enemies and syrphid larvae reduced aphids by 42%. Additionally, aphid recruitment of ants reduced chewing herbivore damage by 11% and indirectly increased okra fruit set.…”

Section: Categories Of Specialismsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Aphid specialism as an example of ecological–evolutionary divergence

Loxdale

Balog

2017

Biological Reviews

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Debate still continues around the definition of generalism and specialism in nature. To some, generalism is equated solely with polyphagy, but this cannot be readily divorced from other essential biological factors, such as morphology, behaviour, genetics, biochemistry, chemistry and ecology, including chemical ecology. Viewed in this light, and accepting that when living organisms evolve to fill new ecological-evolutionary niches, this is the primal act of specialisation, then perhaps all living organisms are specialist in the broadest sense. To illustrate the levels of specialisation that may be found in a group of animals, we here provide an overview of those displayed by a subfamily of hemipteran insects, the Aphididae, which comprises some 1600 species/subspecies in Europe alone and whose members are specialised in a variety of lifestyle traits. These include life cycle, host adaptation, dispersal and migration, associations with bacterial symbionts (in turn related to host adaptation and resistance to hymenopterous wasp parasitoids), mutualisms with ants, and resistance to insecticides. As with polyphagy, these traits cannot easily be separated from one another, but rather, are interconnected, often highly so, which makes the Aphididae a fascinating animal group to study, providing an informative, perhaps unique, model to illustrate the complexities of defining generalism versus specialism.

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“…The cost to benefi t ratio in mutualism changes with the intrinsic features of both partners (e.g. the initial number of partners at the commencement of a relationship) and biotic/abiotic environmental factors (Stadler & Dixon, 1998;Styrsky & Eubanks, 2010;Yoo & Holway, 2011;Barton & Ives, 2014;Singh et al, 2016). Thus, mutualism has a context-dependent aspect, that is, the net benefi ts for a given species depend on ecological conditions (Zhang et al, 2015).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Effect of ant attendance on aphid population growth and above ground biomass of the aphid's host plant

Hosseini¹,

Hosseini²,

Katayama³

et al. 2017

Eur. J. Entomol.

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Ant attendance of the cotton aphid is beneficial for okra plants: deciphering multitrophic interactions

Cited by 9 publications

References 46 publications

Additive effects of plant chemotype, mutualistic ants and predators on aphid performance and survival

Additive effects of plant chemotype, mutualistic ants and predators on aphid performance and survival

Aphid specialism as an example of ecological–evolutionary divergence

Effect of ant attendance on aphid population growth and above ground biomass of the aphid's host plant

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