Hello to everybody. My study is focused on host preference of sucking herbivorous arthropods and, in particular, how plant leaf structural traits affect the feeding choice of herbivores. The information on how herbivores penetrate leaf tissue with their stylets (physical or enzymatic way) can explain some correlations of their densities with leaf structural and mechanical properties. Herbivores involved in my study are scale insects and mealybugs, aphids, whiteflies, thrips, and spider mites.
I can't find papers on feeding/probing behaviour of spider mites and the way they penetrate plant tissues. I would be grateful if anyone could recommend some publications regarding this.
Dear Eugene,
The following book chapter is a decent place to start as it is a concise summary of about 20 years of work on the topic:
Tomczyk, A, Kropczyńska, D (1985) 1.4.7 Effects on the host plant. In: ‘Spider Mites: Their Biology, Natural Enemies and Control. Vol IA’. pp. 317-329. (Eds W Helle, MW Sabelis). (Elsevier: Amsterdam). World Crop Pests, 406 pp.
Briefly, penetration is physical, followed by injection of saliva, so both physical and enzymatic damage to cells occurs.
Kind regards, Owen.
Dear Eugene,
The following book chapter is a decent place to start as it is a concise summary of about 20 years of work on the topic:
Tomczyk, A, Kropczyńska, D (1985) 1.4.7 Effects on the host plant. In: ‘Spider Mites: Their Biology, Natural Enemies and Control. Vol IA’. pp. 317-329. (Eds W Helle, MW Sabelis). (Elsevier: Amsterdam). World Crop Pests, 406 pp.
Briefly, penetration is physical, followed by injection of saliva, so both physical and enzymatic damage to cells occurs.
Kind regards, Owen.
Owen is right. I note his brief description is generally characteristic for most plant sucking insects.
Hi Eugene,
The scientific data provided in the two following articles (that can be found through the two links below) could be helpful:
http://www.eeb.cornell.edu/agrawal/pdfs/2000/mitevo-2000.pdf
http://digital.csic.es/bitstream/10261/54115/6/1471-2164-13-307.pdf
Cheers
Thank you all for the answers.
Dr. András Bozsik, generally yes, but important is when exactly the saliva is injected - during the whole process of stylet penetration (to destroy cell walls) or just into the intended cells (to digest their content). As I kwon, scale insects and other hemipterans do the first way, thrips do the second. Now, thanks to Dr. Owen Seeman's comment, it appears that spider mites do similar to thrips.
Since both thrips and spider mites are mesophyll-feeders, they may not need to penetrate deep into leaf tissue and they do not face strong physical barriers, so they inject saliva only into the intended mesophyll-cells.
However, Hemipterans are phloem-feeders, they need to reach conductive tissue, and the stronger physical barrier is due to the presence of mechanical tissues of bundle-sheaths. To facilitate the stylet penetration, they use enzymes to dissolve cell walls.
Such explanation seems natural to me.
SPIDER MITES AND OTHER ACARINA ON TREES AND SHRUBS by John A. Weidhaas, Jr published in Journal of Arboriculture 5(1): January 1979 has some good insights of spider mites feeding mechanisms.
Success
Dear Eugene,
Here you are the most appropriate resource: http://www.cambridge.org/us/academic/subjects/life-sciences/entomology/insects-structure-and-function-5th-edition
Dr. Vern Stern's lab, when he was a professor at the University of California at Riverside, conducted research on three Tetranychus species feeding on cotton. Each species injects an enzyme when they feed that causes different degrees of cell lysis. Although the amount of material taken up during feeding must be similar given the floe similarities in spider mite sizes and reproductive rates on cotton, the impact of each on photosynthesis is quite different. If I remember correctly, the post-doc?/graduate student? who did the research in Dr. Stern's lab was Marcano Brito. I suggest you do a Web of Science search using both of these names and Tetranychus and cotton. ltw
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