Volatiles from Plants Induced by Multiple Aphid Attacks Promote Conidial Performance of Lecanicillium lecanii

Yongwen Lin; Mubasher Hussain; Pasco Bruce Avery; Muhammad Qasim; Dalin Fang; Liande Wang

doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0151844

Volatiles from Plants Induced by Multiple Aphid Attacks Promote Conidial Performance of Lecanicillium lecanii

PLoS One. 2016 Mar 21;11(3):e0151844. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0151844. eCollection 2016.

Authors

Yongwen Lin^{1

2

3}, Mubasher Hussain^{1

2

3}, Pasco Bruce Avery⁴, Muhammad Qasim^{1

2}, Dalin Fang^{1

2}, Liande Wang^{1

2}

Affiliations

¹ College of Plant Protection, Fujian Agriculture and Forestry University, Fuzhou, China.
² Key Laboratory of Biopesticide and Chemical Biology, Ministry of Education, Fuzhou, China.
³ Key Laboratory of Integrated Pest Management for Fujian-Taiwan Crops, Ministry of Agriculture, Fuzhou, China.
⁴ Indian River Research and Education Center, University of Florida, Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences, Fort Pierce, Florida, United States of America.

Abstract

Herbivore-induced plant volatiles (HIPVs) are clues that help predatory insects search for food. The hypothesis that entomopathogenic fungi, which protect plants, benefit from the release of HIPVs was tested. The plant Arabidopsis thaliana was used as the source of HIPVs. The insect herbivore Lipaphis erysimi (Kaltenbach) was used as the inducer, and the fungal pathogen of the aphid Lecanicillium lecanii was exposed to HIPVs to test our hypothesis. When exposed to aphid-induced A. thaliana volatiles, the mortality of aphids pre-treated with a conidial suspension of L. lecanii, the conidial germination and the appressorial formation were significantly increased compared with the control. The decan-3-ol and 4-methylpentyl isothiocyanate that were detected in the headspace seemed to have positive and negative affection, respectively. Moreover, HIPVs generated from groups of eight aphids per plant promoted significantly increased conidial germination and appressorial formation compared with HIPVs from groups of one, two and four aphids per plant. Our results demonstrated that the pathogenicity of the entomopathogenic fungus L. lecanii was enhanced when exposed to HIPVs and that the HIPVs were affected by the number of insect herbivores that induced them.

Publication types

Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

Animals
Aphids / physiology*
Arabidopsis / chemistry*
Herbivory / drug effects
Hypocreales / drug effects
Hypocreales / physiology*
Spores, Fungal / drug effects
Spores, Fungal / physiology*
Volatile Organic Compounds / pharmacology*

Substances

Volatile Organic Compounds

Grants and funding

Funding provided by National Nature Science Foundation of China (NSFC) with grant number 31371998(http://www.nsfc.gov.cn/), LDW received the funding and Research Fund for the Doctoral Program of Higher Education of China with grant number 20123515110003(http://www.cutech.edu.cn/cn/kyjj/gdxxbsdkyjj/A010301index_1.htm), LDW received the funding. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.