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Thesis

English

ID: <

10670/1.n7t9id

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How multiple-pest attack impacts plant-mediated indirect interactions on tomato crops?

Abstract

In the agroecosystem, plant crops are the primary trophic producer that can be consumed/parasitized by a plethora of organisms, including viruses, bacteria, fungi, nematodes and many herbivore insects. On one hand, plants support these organisms as food resources; on the other hand, plants defend themselves against those consumers by employing constitutive and induced defenses. Both features might be involved in plant-mediated indirect interactions when multiple pests share the same host plant. It means that the presence of one pest might have an indirect effect on another plant through the modification of some plant host features (nutritional quality or defense). During my Ph.D. study, I assessed the modulating factors (both abiotic and biotic factors) that might affect the plant-mediated indirect interactions, and also investigated the influences of such indirect interactions at long term and on a tri-trophic system, and finally analyzed the underlying phytochemical mechanisms by mechabolomics analyses. Firstly, sublethal effects of beta-cypermethrin, a pyrethroid pesticide as the abiotic factor, were assessed on the interspecific interactions between the specialist aphid Aphis glycines, and the generalist aphid Aulacorthum solani on soybeans. Sublethal concentration (LC5) of beta-cypermethrin accelerated the interspecific competition between the two species of aphids. Induced susceptibility of soybean plants to one species of aphids caused by the other species would be significantly impaired by the exposure to sublethal beta-cypermethrin.Secondly, various pest species abundance and feeding strategies, i.e. the piercing-sucking aphid, the chewing caterpillar, the plant fungus and the root-knot nematode, were introduced on tomato plants, Solanum lycopersicum to evaluate the plant-mediated indirect interactions among these pests. In the results, insect performances, i.e. the number of aphid individuals and development rate of caterpillar larva, were correlated to the abundance of indirect interactions whether pests attacked tomato plants sequentially or simultaneously. When pests attacked tomato plants at the same time, insect performances were positively correlated to the abundance of indirect interactions. Nevertheless, when pests infested tomato plants in sequence, the insect performances were negatively correlated to the abundance of indirect interactions. However, such a correlation was not detected with the pathogenic organisms (fungi and nematodes). Thirdly, the population dynamic of aphid M. euphorbiae was also monitored under a tri-trophic system. We found that the aphid population, involved in the above-belowground interactions, slowed down in both the short term and long term via reduced survival of nymph aphids and facilitating induction of winged aphids. Furthermore, parasitism efficiency of the natural enemy Aphidius ervi to aphids and tomato yields were also reduced by such above-belowground interactions. Lastly, following an untargeted metabolomic approach, we detected many significant chemical variations between non-infested and infested plants, disregarding the pest infestation. Most of them are probably induced by the presence of nematodes, the only belowground pest. On the opposite, we did not observe many chemical differences in roots metabolome when we compared the different types of infestation, meaning that the presence of nematodes probably lead the metabolomic signal in infested roots, disregarding the presence of other pests aboveground. All the studies may contribute to a comprehensive understanding of the diverse interactions among plants, pesticides, various pests, and natural enemies, and optimizing the integrated pest management in the agroecosystem.

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