Limited Predator-Induced Dispersal in Whiteflies
Whereas prey are known to avoid habitats with their predators, it is less well established whether they are triggered to emigrate to new habitats when exposed to predators in their current habitat. We studied plant-to-plant dispersal of adult whiteflies in response to the presence of predatory mites...
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| Format: | Online |
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Public Library of Science
2012
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| Online Access: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3459966/ |
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pubmed-34599662012-10-01 Limited Predator-Induced Dispersal in Whiteflies Meng, Rui-Xia Sabelis, Maurice W. Janssen, Arne Research Article Whereas prey are known to avoid habitats with their predators, it is less well established whether they are triggered to emigrate to new habitats when exposed to predators in their current habitat. We studied plant-to-plant dispersal of adult whiteflies in response to the presence of predatory mites on the plant on which the whiteflies were released. These predators attack whitefly eggs and crawlers, but not the adults, which can fly to other plants and can learn to avoid plants with predators. Being tiny and wingless, the predatory mites are slow dispersers compared to adult whiteflies. This offers the whiteflies the opportunity to escape from plants with predatory mites to plants without predators, thus avoiding predation of their offspring. To test for this escape response, a greenhouse experiment was carried out, where whiteflies were released on the first of a row of 5 cucumber plants, 0.6 m or 2 m apart, and predators either on the same plant, on the next plant, or nowhere (control). Adult whiteflies dispersed significantly faster from plants with predatory mites onto neighbouring plants when the plants were 0.6 m apart, but not when plants were 2 m apart. However, the final numbers of whiteflies that had successfully dispersed at the end of the experiments did not differ significantly for either of the two interplant distances. Overall, the proportion of whiteflies that did disperse was low, suggesting that adult whiteflies were apparently reluctant to disperse, even from plants with predators. Our results suggest that this reluctance increases with the distance between the plants, so most likely depends on the uncertainty to find a new plant. Thus, whiteflies do not always venture to fly even when they can easily bridge the distance to another plant. Public Library of Science 2012-09-27 /pmc/articles/PMC3459966/ /pubmed/23029046 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0045487 Text en © 2012 Meng et al http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are properly credited. |
| repository_type |
Open Access Journal |
| institution_category |
Foreign Institution |
| institution |
US National Center for Biotechnology Information |
| building |
NCBI PubMed |
| collection |
Online Access |
| language |
English |
| format |
Online |
| author |
Meng, Rui-Xia Sabelis, Maurice W. Janssen, Arne |
| spellingShingle |
Meng, Rui-Xia Sabelis, Maurice W. Janssen, Arne Limited Predator-Induced Dispersal in Whiteflies |
| author_facet |
Meng, Rui-Xia Sabelis, Maurice W. Janssen, Arne |
| author_sort |
Meng, Rui-Xia |
| title |
Limited Predator-Induced Dispersal in Whiteflies |
| title_short |
Limited Predator-Induced Dispersal in Whiteflies |
| title_full |
Limited Predator-Induced Dispersal in Whiteflies |
| title_fullStr |
Limited Predator-Induced Dispersal in Whiteflies |
| title_full_unstemmed |
Limited Predator-Induced Dispersal in Whiteflies |
| title_sort |
limited predator-induced dispersal in whiteflies |
| description |
Whereas prey are known to avoid habitats with their predators, it is less well established whether they are triggered to emigrate to new habitats when exposed to predators in their current habitat. We studied plant-to-plant dispersal of adult whiteflies in response to the presence of predatory mites on the plant on which the whiteflies were released. These predators attack whitefly eggs and crawlers, but not the adults, which can fly to other plants and can learn to avoid plants with predators. Being tiny and wingless, the predatory mites are slow dispersers compared to adult whiteflies. This offers the whiteflies the opportunity to escape from plants with predatory mites to plants without predators, thus avoiding predation of their offspring. To test for this escape response, a greenhouse experiment was carried out, where whiteflies were released on the first of a row of 5 cucumber plants, 0.6 m or 2 m apart, and predators either on the same plant, on the next plant, or nowhere (control). Adult whiteflies dispersed significantly faster from plants with predatory mites onto neighbouring plants when the plants were 0.6 m apart, but not when plants were 2 m apart. However, the final numbers of whiteflies that had successfully dispersed at the end of the experiments did not differ significantly for either of the two interplant distances. Overall, the proportion of whiteflies that did disperse was low, suggesting that adult whiteflies were apparently reluctant to disperse, even from plants with predators. Our results suggest that this reluctance increases with the distance between the plants, so most likely depends on the uncertainty to find a new plant. Thus, whiteflies do not always venture to fly even when they can easily bridge the distance to another plant. |
| publisher |
Public Library of Science |
| publishDate |
2012 |
| url |
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3459966/ |
| _version_ |
1611912495458418688 |