Mycorrhizal fungi associate with the vast majority of plant species and have a variety of nutrient and water uptake benefits to the host plant. Additionally, arbuscular mycorrhizae (AM) affect both primary and secondary metabolic pathways as well as controlling gene expression in root cells. Root colonization by mycorrhizal fungi occurs near the site of alkaloid synthesis. The interaction of mycorrhizae and plants that produce alkaloids in their roots has not been studied very extensively. Nicotiana rustica was grown in the greenhouse and colonized by a native mirid, Tupiocoris notatus. In preliminary findings, we found that mycorrhizal plants were not colonized by nymphs, but there were no differences in adult populations between the two treatments of mycorrhizal or non-mycorrhizal tobacco plants. Additionally, mycorrhizal plants were not damaged enough to measure damage compared to the non-mycorrhizal plants. These results suggest that there is some bottom-up maintenance of some defensive or plant quality change associated with being mycorrhizal that appears not to be amenable to nymphal growth on mycorrhizal plants. We will report further data from work on tobacco and milkweed conducted this year.
Species 1: Hemiptera Tupiocoris notatus
Species 2: Solanaceae Nicotiana rustica (tobacco)
Keywords: mycorrhizae, tri-trophic interactions
The ESA 2001 Annual Meeting - 2001: An Entomological Odyssey of ESA