Ablation of caterpillar labial salivary glands: technique for determining the role of saliva in insect-plant interactions.

There has been an ardent interest in herbivore saliva due to its roles in inducing plant defenses and its impact on herbivore fitness. Two techniques are described that inhibit the secretion of labial saliva from the caterpillar, Helicoverpa zea, during feeding. The methods rely on cauterizing the caterpillar's spinneret, the principal secretory structure of the labial glands, or surgically removing the labial salivary gland. Both methods successfully inhibit secretion of saliva and the principal salivary enzyme glucose oxidase. Caterpillars with inhibited saliva production feed at similar rates as the untreated caterpillars, pupate, and emerge as adults. Glucose oxidase has been suggested to increase the caterpillar's survival through the suppression of inducible anti-herbivore defenses in plants. Tobacco (Nicotiana tabacum) leaves fed on by caterpillars with ablated salivary glands had significantly higher levels of nicotine, an inducible anti-herbivore defense compound of tobacco, than leaves fed upon by caterpillars with intact labial salivary glands. Tomato (Lycopersicon esculentum) leaves fed upon by caterpillars with suppressed salivary secretions showed greatly reduced evidence of hydrogen peroxide formation compared to leaves fed upon by intact caterpillars. These two methods are useful techniques for determining the role that saliva plays in manipulating plant anti-herbivore defenses

Herbivory in the previous generation primes plants for enhanced insect resistance.

Inducible defenses, which provide enhanced resistance after initial attack, are nearly universal in plants. This defense signaling cascade is mediated by the synthesis, movement, and perception of jasmonic acid and related plant metabolites. To characterize the long-term persistence of plant immunity, we challenged Arabidopsis (Arabidopsis thaliana) and tomato (Solanum lycopersicum) with caterpillar herbivory, application of methyl jasmonate, or mechanical damage during vegetative growth and assessed plant resistance in subsequent generations. Here, we show that induced resistance was associated with transgenerational priming of jasmonic acid-dependent defense responses in both species, caused caterpillars to grow up to 50% smaller than on control plants, and persisted for two generations in Arabidopsis. Arabidopsis mutants that are deficient in jasmonate perception (coronatine insensitive1) or in the biogenesis of small interfering RNA (dicer-like2 dicer-like3 dicer-like4 and nuclear RNA polymerase d2a nuclear RNA polymerase d2b) do not exhibit inherited resistance. The observation of inherited resistance in both the Brassicaceae and Solanaceae suggests that this trait may be more widely distributed in plants. Epigenetic resistance to herbivory thus represents a phenotypically plastic mechanism for enhanced defense across generations

Gut redox conditions in herbivorous lepidopteran larvae

Large interspecific differences in redox potential exist among herbivorous lepidopteran larvae. Reducing conditions occur in the midguts of Manduca sexta (Sphingidae) and Polia latex (Noctuidae), whereas oxidizing conditions prevail in the midguts of Lymantria dispar (Lymantriidae), Danaus plexippus (Danaidae), and Papilio glaucus (Papilionidae). The epithelium of the posterior midgut of M. sexta fed a diet containing bismuth subnitrate accumulates bismuth sulfide, suggesting that sulfide might be one of the reducing agents responsible for the maintenance of reducing conditions in this species. We propose that the effects of plant allelochemicals in insect herbivores will be strongly affected by gut redox conditions and that the regulation of gut redox conditions is an important adaptation of insect herbivores to the chemical defenses of plants. The redox state of the gut is yet another insect trait that must be included in the analysis of plant-insect interactions.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/44878/1/10886_2004_Article_BF00982098.pd