Mating Frequency of European Corn Borer (Lepidoptera: Crambidae) in Minnesota, Kansas, and Texas

The frequency of mating and polyandry in natural populations are important parameters for understanding evolutionary dynamics. Mating frequency among natural populations of Ostrinia nubilalis (Hübner) [Lepidoptera: Crambidae] are quite variable. Showers et al. (1974) found 91.1, 73.8, and 71.3% of females had mated during the second flight over 1971-3 at one location in Iowa. During 1971, only 10% mated multiple times, with lower levels of polyandry in subsequent years. In an earlier study in Iowa, Pesho (1961) found that 65-100 % of females had mated and up to 43% had mated more than once. A population in southwestern Ontario averaged 73% mating and 37% polyandry for the 5-year period from 1971-5, a higher rate of polyandry than during the same period in Iowa (Elliot, 1977). In this note, we amplify these previously published results by reporting the mating status of female O. nubilalis captured in light traps in Minnesota, Kansas and Texas. We also provide evidence that some females in natural populations may be sperm-limited

Mating Frequency of European Corn Borer (Lepidoptera: Crambidae) in Minnesota, Kansas, and Texas

The frequency of mating and polyandry in natural populations are important parameters for understanding evolutionary dynamics. Mating frequency among natural populations of Ostrinia nubilalis (Hübner) [Lepidoptera: Crambidae] are quite variable. Showers et al. (1974) found 91.1, 73.8, and 71.3% of females had mated during the second flight over 1971-3 at one location in Iowa. During 1971, only 10% mated multiple times, with lower levels of polyandry in subsequent years. In an earlier study in Iowa, Pesho (1961) found that 65-100 % of females had mated and up to 43% had mated more than once. A population in southwestern Ontario averaged 73% mating and 37% polyandry for the 5-year period from 1971-5, a higher rate of polyandry than during the same period in Iowa (Elliot, 1977). In this note, we amplify these previously published results by reporting the mating status of female O. nubilalis captured in light traps in Minnesota, Kansas and Texas. We also provide evidence that some females in natural populations may be sperm-limited

Transfer of Cry1F from Bt maize to eggs of resistant Spodoptera frugiperda.

<div><p>The intergenerational transfer of plant defense compounds by aposematic insects is well documented, and since 2006, has been shown for Cry toxins. Cry toxins are proteins naturally produced by the soil bacterium <i>Bacillus thuringiensis</i> (<i>Bt</i>) and its genes have been expressed in plants to confer insect pest resistance. In this work we tested if non-aposematic larvae of a major maize pest, <i>Spodoptera frugiperda</i>, with resistance to Cry1F, could transfer Cry1F from a genetically engineered maize variety to their offspring. Resistant 10-day-old larvae that fed on Cry1F <i>Bt</i> maize until pupation were sexed and pair-mated to produce eggs. Using ELISA we found that Cry1F was transferred to offspring (1.47–4.42 ng Cry1F/10 eggs), a toxin concentration about 28–83 times less than that detected in Cry1F <i>Bt</i> maize leaves. This occurred when only one or both sexes were exposed, and more was transferred when both parents were exposed, with transitory detection in the first five egg masses. This work is an unprecedented demonstration that a non-aposematic, but resistant, species can transfer Cry1F to their offspring when exposed to <i>Bt</i> host plant leaves as immatures.</p></div

Uptake and transfer of a Bt toxin by a lepidoptera to Its eggs and effects on Its offspring.

Research on non-target effects of transgenic crop plants has focused primarily on bitrophic, tritrophic and indirect effects of entomotoxins from Bacillus thuringiensis, but little work has considered intergenerational transfer of Cry proteins. This work reports a lepidopteran (Chlosyne lacinia) taking up a Bt entomotoxin when exposed to sublethal or low concentrations, transferring the entomotoxin to eggs, and having adverse effects on the first filial generation (F1) offspring. Two bioassays were conducted using a sublethal concentration of toxin (100.0 ng/ml Cry1Ac) for adults and a concentration equal to the LC10 (2.0 ng/ml Cry1Ac) for larvae. Cry1Ac is the most common entomotoxin expressed in Bt cotton in Brazil. In the adult diet bioassay there was no adverse effect on the parental generation (P0) adults, but the F1 larvae had higher mortality and longer development time compared to F1 larvae of parents that did not ingest Cry1Ac. For the 3rd instar larvae, there was no measurable effect on the P0 larvae, pupae and adults, but the F1 larvae had higher mortality and longer development time. Using chemiluminescent Western Blot, Cry1Ac was detected in F1 eggs laid by P0 butterflies from both bioassays. Our study indicates that, at least for this species and these experimental conditions, a ,65 kDa insecticidal protein can be taken up and transferred to descendants where it can increase mortality and development time

Detection and decay rates of prey and prey symbionts in the gut of a predator through metagenomics.

DNA methods are useful to identify ingested prey items from the gut of predators, but reliable detection is hampered by low amounts of degraded DNA. PCR-based methods can retrieve minute amounts of starting material but suffer from amplification biases and cross-reactions with the predator and related species genomes. Here, we use PCR-free direct shotgun sequencing of total DNA isolated from the gut of the harlequin ladybird Harmonia axyridis at five time points after feeding on a single pea aphid Acyrthosiphon pisum. Sequence reads were matched to three reference databases: Insecta mitogenomes of 587 species, including H. axyridis sequenced here; A. pisum nuclear genome scaffolds; and scaffolds and complete genomes of 13 potential bacterial symbionts. Immediately after feeding, multicopy mtDNA of A. pisum was detected in tens of reads, while hundreds of matches to nuclear scaffolds were detected. Aphid nuclear DNA and mtDNA decayed at similar rates (0.281 and 0.11 h1 respectively), and the detectability periods were 32.7 and 23.1 h. Metagenomic sequencing also revealed thousands of reads of the obligate Buchnera aphidicola and facultative Regiella insecticola aphid symbionts, which showed exponential decay rates significantly faster than aphid DNA (0.694 and 0.80 h 1, respectively). However, the facultative aphid symbionts Hamiltonella defensa, Arsenophonus spp. and Serratia symbiotica showed an unexpected temporary increase in population size by 1?2 orders of magnitude in the predator guts before declining. Metagenomics is a powerful tool that can reveal complex relationships and the dynamics of interactions among predators, prey and their symbionts

Uncovering trophic interactions in arthropod predators through DNA shotgun-sequencing of gut contents

Characterizing trophic networks is fundamental to many questions in ecology, but this typically requires painstaking efforts, especially to identify the diet of small generalist predators. Several attempts have been devoted to develop suitable molecular tools to determine predatory trophic interactions through gut content analysis, and the challenge has been to achieve simultaneously high taxonomic breadth and resolution. General and practical methods are still needed, preferably independent of PCR amplification of barcodes, to recover a broader range of interactions. Here we applied shotgun-sequencing of the DNA from arthropod predator gut contents, extracted from four common coccinellid and dermapteran predators co-occurring in an agroecosystem in Brazil. By matching unassembled reads against six DNA reference databases obtained from public databases and newly assembled mitogenomes, and filtering for high overlap length and identity, we identified prey and other foreign DNA in the predator guts. Good taxonomic breadth and resolution was achieved (93% of prey identified to species or genus), but with low recovery of matching reads. Two to nine trophic interactions were found for these predators, some of which were only inferred by the presence of parasitoids and components of the microbiome known to be associated with aphid prey. Intraguild predation was also found, including among closely related ladybird species. Uncertainty arises from the lack of comprehensive reference databases and reliance on low numbers of matching reads accentuating the risk of false positives. We discuss caveats and some future prospects that could improve the use of direct DNA shotgun-sequencing to characterize arthropod trophic networks