Dataset Information

Social wasps are effective biocontrol agents of key lepidopteran crop pests.

ABSTRACT: Biocontrol agents can help reduce pest populations as part of an integrated pest management scheme, with minimal environmental consequences. However, biocontrol agents are often non-native species and require significant infrastructure; overuse of single agents results in pest resistance. Native biocontrol agents are urgently required for more sustainable multi-faceted approaches to pest management. Social wasps are natural predators of lepidopteran pests, yet their viability as native biocontrol agents is largely unknown. Here, we provide evidence that the social paper wasp Polistes satan is a successful predator on the larvae of two economically important and resilient crop pests, the sugarcane borer Diatraea saccharalis (on sugarcane Saccharum spp.) and the fall armyworm Spodoptera frugiperda (on maize Zea mays); P. satan wasps significantly reduce crop pest damage. These results provide the much-needed baseline experimental evidence that social wasps have untapped potential as native biocontrol agents for sustainable crop production and food security.

SUBMITTER: Southon RJ

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6842862 | biostudies-literature | 2019 Nov

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Social wasps are effective biocontrol agents of key lepidopteran crop pests.

Southon Robin J RJ Fernandes Odair A OA Nascimento Fabio S FS Sumner Seirian S

Proceedings. Biological sciences 20191106 1914

Biocontrol agents can help reduce pest populations as part of an integrated pest management scheme, with minimal environmental consequences. However, biocontrol agents are often non-native species and require significant infrastructure; overuse of single agents results in pest resistance. Native biocontrol agents are urgently required for more sustainable multi-faceted approaches to pest management. Social wasps are natural predators of lepidopteran pests, yet their viability as native biocontro ...[more]

PMID: 31690237

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Project description:Lepidopteran pests are major factors limiting soybean productivity in South America. In some cases, effective management of these species requires the use of foliar insecticides. For sustainable use of these insecticides, they should only be applied when insect population size exceeds an economic threshold. Since this estimation requires to determine the consumption of different species, this work aimed to integrate all these factors, studying the consumption of small (less than 1 cm long) and medium (1 to 1.5 cm long) size larvae of major lepidopteran pests to vegetative and reproductive tissues on Bt (M7739IPRO variety, containing the event MON87701 which expresses the Cry1Ac protein from Bacillus thuringiensis) and non-Bt (BMX Desafio RR variety) soybeans. The feeding injury to vegetative tissues was tested in detached-leaf assays in grow chambers, and for reproductive structures the study was conducted in greenhouse with infestations at early (flowering) and mid reproductive (mid grain filling) stages. Based on the feeding behavior of the species tested, they were cast in four groups: a) Anticarsia gemmatalis and Chrysodeixis includens, defoliating only the RR variety with the lowest consumption of foliar area; b) Spodoptera eridania, defoliating both RR and IPRO varieties, consuming twice than the species mentioned above; c) Helicoverpa armigera, defoliating and being the most damaging species to pods in the RR variety; and d) S. cosmioides and S. frugiperda, defoliating and damaging pods in both varieties. The species differed in their ability to feed on IPRO varieties, so a different economic threshold should be considered. Consequently, in cases where more than one species are found simultaneously, the species composition should be considered in estimating the economic threshold. Additionally, our findings may contribute to a better decision-making to control insect feeding injury in IPRO varieties, because a slower larval growth provides more time to ensure the need of control with insecticides. In summary, this clasification contributes to an improved recommendation of sustainable insecticide use, taking into account the behavior of each species that are major soybeans pests in South America.

Project description:BackgroundPlant volatiles play an important role in defending plants against insect attacks by attracting their natural enemies. For example, green leaf volatiles (GLVs) and terpenoids emitted from herbivore-damaged plants were found to be important in the host location of parasitic wasps. However, evidence of the functional roles and mechanisms of these semio-chemicals from a system of multiple plants in prey location by the parasitoid is limited. Little is known about the potential evolutionary trends between herbivore-induced host plant volatiles and the host location of their parasitoids.Methodology/principal findingsThe present study includes hierarchical cluster analyses of plant volatile profiles from seven families of host and non-host plants of pea leafminer, Liriomyza huidobrensis, and behavioral responses of a naive parasitic wasp, Opius dissitus, to some principal volatile compounds. Here we show that plants can effectively pull wasps, O. dissitus, towards them by releasing a universally induced compound, (Z)-3-hexenol, and potentially keep these plants safe from parasitic assaults by leafminer pests, L. huidobrensis. Specifically, we found that volatile profiles from healthy plants revealed a partly phylogenetic signal, while the inducible compounds of the infested-plants did not result from the fact that the induced plant volatiles dominate most of the volatile blends of the host and non-host plants of the leafminer pests. We further show that the parasitoids are capable of distinguishing the damaged host plant from the non-host plant of the leafminers.Conclusions/significanceOur results suggest that, as the most passive scenario of plant involvement, leafminers and mechanical damages evoke similar semio-chemicals. Using ubiquitous compounds, such as hexenol, for host location by general parasitoids could be an adaptation of the most conservative evolution of tritrophic interaction. Although for this, other compounds may be used to improve the precision of the host location by the parasitoids.

Dataset Information

Social wasps are effective biocontrol agents of key lepidopteran crop pests.

Publications

Social wasps are effective biocontrol agents of key lepidopteran crop pests.

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