Enhanced top-down control of herbivore population growth on plants with impaired defences.

Autor: Legarrea S; Evolutionary and Population Biology Institute for Biodiversity and Ecosystem Dynamics (IBED) University of Amsterdam Amsterdam The Netherlands.; Departamento de Agricultura y Alimentación Universidad de la Rioja Logroño Spain., Janssen A; Evolutionary and Population Biology Institute for Biodiversity and Ecosystem Dynamics (IBED) University of Amsterdam Amsterdam The Netherlands.; Department of Entomology Federal University of Viçosa Viçosa Brazil., Dong L; Evolutionary and Population Biology Institute for Biodiversity and Ecosystem Dynamics (IBED) University of Amsterdam Amsterdam The Netherlands., Glas JJ; Rijk Zwaan Breeding B.V. De Lier The Netherlands., van Houten YM; Koppert Biological Systems Berkel en Rodenrijs The Netherlands., Scala A; Evolutionary and Population Biology Institute for Biodiversity and Ecosystem Dynamics (IBED) University of Amsterdam Amsterdam The Netherlands., Kant MR; Evolutionary and Population Biology Institute for Biodiversity and Ecosystem Dynamics (IBED) University of Amsterdam Amsterdam The Netherlands.
Jazyk: angličtina
Zdroj: Functional ecology [Funct Ecol] 2022 Nov; Vol. 36 (11), pp. 2859-2872. Date of Electronic Publication: 2022 Sep 21.
DOI: 10.1111/1365-2435.14175
Abstrakt: Herbivore densities can be regulated by bottom-up and top-down forces such as plant defences and natural enemies, respectively. These forces can interact with each other to increase plant protection against herbivores; however, how much complementarity exists between bottom-up and top-down forces still remains to be fully elucidated. Particularly, because plant defences can hinder natural enemies, how these interactions affect herbivore performance and dynamics remains elusive.To address this topic, we performed laboratory and greenhouse bioassays with herbivorous mite pests and predatory mites on mutant tomato plants that lack defensive hairs on stems and leaves. Particularly, we investigated the behaviour and population dynamics of different phytophagous mite species in the absence and presence of predatory mites.We show that predatory mites do not only perform better on tomatoes lacking defensive hairs but also that they can suppress herbivore densities better and faster on these hairless plants. Hence, top-down control of herbivores by natural enemies more than compensated the reduced bottom-up herbivore control by plant defences.Our results lead to the counter-intuitive insight that removing, instead of introducing, plant defence traits can result in superior protection against important pests through biological control. Read the free Plain Language Summary for this article on the Journal blog.
Competing Interests: The authors declare no conflict of interest.
(© 2022 The Authors. Functional Ecology published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd on behalf of British Ecological Society.)
Databáze: MEDLINE
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