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Tomato Reproductive Success Is Equally Affected by Herbivores That Induce or That Suppress Defenses

Herbivory induces plant defenses. These responses are often costly, yet enable plants under attack to reach a higher fitness than they would have reached without these defenses. Spider mites (Tetranychus ssp.) are polyphagous plant-pests. While most strains of the species Tetranychus urticae induce...

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Autores principales: Liu, Jie, Legarrea, Saioa, Kant, Merijn R.
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Frontiers Media S.A. 2017
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5733352/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29326739
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpls.2017.02128
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author Liu, Jie
Legarrea, Saioa
Kant, Merijn R.
author_facet Liu, Jie
Legarrea, Saioa
Kant, Merijn R.
author_sort Liu, Jie
collection PubMed
description Herbivory induces plant defenses. These responses are often costly, yet enable plants under attack to reach a higher fitness than they would have reached without these defenses. Spider mites (Tetranychus ssp.) are polyphagous plant-pests. While most strains of the species Tetranychus urticae induce defenses at the expense of their performance, the species Tetranychus evansi suppresses plant defenses and thereby maintains a high performance. Most data indicate that suppression is a mite-adaptive trait. Suppression is characterized by a massive down-regulation of plant gene-expression compared to plants infested with defense-inducing mites as well as compared to control plants, albeit to a lesser extent. Therefore, we hypothesized that suppression may also benefit a plant since the resources saved during down-regulation could be used to increase reproduction. To test this hypothesis, we compared fruit and viable seed production of uninfested tomato plants with that of plants infested with defense-inducing or defense-suppressing mites. Mite-infested plants produced fruits faster than control plants albeit in lower total amounts. The T. evansi-infested plants produced the lowest number of fruits. However, the number of viable seeds was equal across treatments at the end of the experiment. Nonetheless, at this stage control plants were still alive and productive and therefore reach a higher lifetime fitness than mite-infested plants. Our results indicate that plants have plastic control over reproduction and can speed up fruit- and seed production when conditions are unfavorable. Moreover, we showed that although suppressed plants are less productive in terms of fruit production than induced plants, their lifetime fitness was equal under laboratory conditions. However, under natural conditions the fitness of plants such as tomato will also depend on the efficiency of seed dispersal by animals. Hence, we argue that the fitness of induced plants in the field may be promoted more by their higher fruit production relative to that of their suppressed counterparts.
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spelling pubmed-57333522018-01-11 Tomato Reproductive Success Is Equally Affected by Herbivores That Induce or That Suppress Defenses Liu, Jie Legarrea, Saioa Kant, Merijn R. Front Plant Sci Plant Science Herbivory induces plant defenses. These responses are often costly, yet enable plants under attack to reach a higher fitness than they would have reached without these defenses. Spider mites (Tetranychus ssp.) are polyphagous plant-pests. While most strains of the species Tetranychus urticae induce defenses at the expense of their performance, the species Tetranychus evansi suppresses plant defenses and thereby maintains a high performance. Most data indicate that suppression is a mite-adaptive trait. Suppression is characterized by a massive down-regulation of plant gene-expression compared to plants infested with defense-inducing mites as well as compared to control plants, albeit to a lesser extent. Therefore, we hypothesized that suppression may also benefit a plant since the resources saved during down-regulation could be used to increase reproduction. To test this hypothesis, we compared fruit and viable seed production of uninfested tomato plants with that of plants infested with defense-inducing or defense-suppressing mites. Mite-infested plants produced fruits faster than control plants albeit in lower total amounts. The T. evansi-infested plants produced the lowest number of fruits. However, the number of viable seeds was equal across treatments at the end of the experiment. Nonetheless, at this stage control plants were still alive and productive and therefore reach a higher lifetime fitness than mite-infested plants. Our results indicate that plants have plastic control over reproduction and can speed up fruit- and seed production when conditions are unfavorable. Moreover, we showed that although suppressed plants are less productive in terms of fruit production than induced plants, their lifetime fitness was equal under laboratory conditions. However, under natural conditions the fitness of plants such as tomato will also depend on the efficiency of seed dispersal by animals. Hence, we argue that the fitness of induced plants in the field may be promoted more by their higher fruit production relative to that of their suppressed counterparts. Frontiers Media S.A. 2017-12-13 /pmc/articles/PMC5733352/ /pubmed/29326739 http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpls.2017.02128 Text en Copyright © 2017 Liu, Legarrea and Kant. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
spellingShingle Plant Science
Liu, Jie
Legarrea, Saioa
Kant, Merijn R.
Tomato Reproductive Success Is Equally Affected by Herbivores That Induce or That Suppress Defenses
title Tomato Reproductive Success Is Equally Affected by Herbivores That Induce or That Suppress Defenses
title_full Tomato Reproductive Success Is Equally Affected by Herbivores That Induce or That Suppress Defenses
title_fullStr Tomato Reproductive Success Is Equally Affected by Herbivores That Induce or That Suppress Defenses
title_full_unstemmed Tomato Reproductive Success Is Equally Affected by Herbivores That Induce or That Suppress Defenses
title_short Tomato Reproductive Success Is Equally Affected by Herbivores That Induce or That Suppress Defenses
title_sort tomato reproductive success is equally affected by herbivores that induce or that suppress defenses
topic Plant Science
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5733352/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29326739
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpls.2017.02128
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