How to determine accurate measurements mouth parts and lengths of adults and nymphs whitefly, Bemisia tabaci, further how much its stylet penetrate or insert for taking phloem sap in to the leaf/phloem tissue.
How to determine the depth of stylet penetration, and to evaluate the hypothesis that stylet length is a limiting factor for successful feeding of whitefly nymphs and adults.
Hi Rakesh,
My experience is with beetles, fish and trees, but I have a few ideas for you.
Are you trying to look at live or pinned individuals? You should be able to measure mouth parts on pinned flies if you have good resolution light microscopy, and definitely if you have access to SEM. Making measurements on those images using image processing software (ImageJ, NIS-Elements, MatLab, etc.) would be easy and straightforward.
You are rearing your own colony of whiteflies? Restricting an individual to specific leaves would allow you to relate mouth parts to leaf penetration. While I am more familiar with animal histology, I know that leaf histology can be a good option. Cross-sections of a leaf around and through the penetration point could be taken, stained, and imaged in brightfield. Again, image processing software could be used to determine the depth.
Good luck!
-Melissa
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Thanks Melissa for the share !
Rakesh, good luck with your reseach. You could also contact Bernard Reynaud (CIRAD) that worked on B. tabacci ant its feeding habits.
Have a nice day.
Julien
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