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Foliage Intensity is an Important Cue of Habitat Location for Empoasca onukii

For many herbivorous insects, vision is more important than olfaction in the prealighting stage of host habitat location. Tea leafhoppers, Empoasca onukii (Hemiptera, Cicadellidae), are serious pests that preferentially inhabit the tender leaves of tea plants across China. Here, we investigated whet...

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Autores principales: Bian, Lei, Cai, Xiao Ming, Luo, Zong Xiu, Li, Zhao Qun, Chen, Zong Mao
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: MDPI 2020
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7412280/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32659987
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/insects11070426
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author Bian, Lei
Cai, Xiao Ming
Luo, Zong Xiu
Li, Zhao Qun
Chen, Zong Mao
author_facet Bian, Lei
Cai, Xiao Ming
Luo, Zong Xiu
Li, Zhao Qun
Chen, Zong Mao
author_sort Bian, Lei
collection PubMed
description For many herbivorous insects, vision is more important than olfaction in the prealighting stage of host habitat location. Tea leafhoppers, Empoasca onukii (Hemiptera, Cicadellidae), are serious pests that preferentially inhabit the tender leaves of tea plants across China. Here, we investigated whether tea leafhoppers could distinguish foliage colors associated with different leaf ages and use this visual cue to guide suitable habitat location from short distances. Similar to honeybees, the adult E. onukii has an apposition type of compound eye, and each ommatidium has eight retinular cells, in which three spectral types of photoreceptors are distributed, with peak sensitivities at 356 nm (ultraviolet), 435 nm (blue), and 542 nm (green). Both changes in spectral intensity and hue of reflectance light of the host foliage were correlated with varying leaf age, and the intensity linearly decreased with increasing leaf age. Behavioral responses also showed that adult E. onukii could discriminate between the simulated colors of host foliage at different leaf ages without olfactory stimuli and selected the bright colors that strongly corresponded to those of tender leaves. The results suggest that, compared with the spectral composition (hue), the intensity of light reflectance from leaves at different ages is more important for adult leafhoppers when discriminating host foliage and could guide them to tender leaves at the top of tea shoots.
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spelling pubmed-74122802020-08-17 Foliage Intensity is an Important Cue of Habitat Location for Empoasca onukii Bian, Lei Cai, Xiao Ming Luo, Zong Xiu Li, Zhao Qun Chen, Zong Mao Insects Article For many herbivorous insects, vision is more important than olfaction in the prealighting stage of host habitat location. Tea leafhoppers, Empoasca onukii (Hemiptera, Cicadellidae), are serious pests that preferentially inhabit the tender leaves of tea plants across China. Here, we investigated whether tea leafhoppers could distinguish foliage colors associated with different leaf ages and use this visual cue to guide suitable habitat location from short distances. Similar to honeybees, the adult E. onukii has an apposition type of compound eye, and each ommatidium has eight retinular cells, in which three spectral types of photoreceptors are distributed, with peak sensitivities at 356 nm (ultraviolet), 435 nm (blue), and 542 nm (green). Both changes in spectral intensity and hue of reflectance light of the host foliage were correlated with varying leaf age, and the intensity linearly decreased with increasing leaf age. Behavioral responses also showed that adult E. onukii could discriminate between the simulated colors of host foliage at different leaf ages without olfactory stimuli and selected the bright colors that strongly corresponded to those of tender leaves. The results suggest that, compared with the spectral composition (hue), the intensity of light reflectance from leaves at different ages is more important for adult leafhoppers when discriminating host foliage and could guide them to tender leaves at the top of tea shoots. MDPI 2020-07-09 /pmc/articles/PMC7412280/ /pubmed/32659987 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/insects11070426 Text en © 2020 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
spellingShingle Article
Bian, Lei
Cai, Xiao Ming
Luo, Zong Xiu
Li, Zhao Qun
Chen, Zong Mao
Foliage Intensity is an Important Cue of Habitat Location for Empoasca onukii
title Foliage Intensity is an Important Cue of Habitat Location for Empoasca onukii
title_full Foliage Intensity is an Important Cue of Habitat Location for Empoasca onukii
title_fullStr Foliage Intensity is an Important Cue of Habitat Location for Empoasca onukii
title_full_unstemmed Foliage Intensity is an Important Cue of Habitat Location for Empoasca onukii
title_short Foliage Intensity is an Important Cue of Habitat Location for Empoasca onukii
title_sort foliage intensity is an important cue of habitat location for empoasca onukii
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7412280/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32659987
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/insects11070426
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