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Imidacloprid Movement into Fungal Conidia Is Lethal to Mycophagous Beetles

SIMPLE SUMMARY: Some insects are beneficial to plants because they eat pest insects and disease-causing fungi; integrating the use of these insects into pest management can help to reduce the need for costly pesticide applications. Twenty-spotted ladybeetles eat plant pathogenic fungi, which helps t...

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Autores principales: Choudhury, Robin A., Sutherland, Andrew M., Hengel, Matt J., Parrella, Michael P., Gubler, W. Douglas
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: MDPI 2020
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7469163/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32756374
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/insects11080496
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author Choudhury, Robin A.
Sutherland, Andrew M.
Hengel, Matt J.
Parrella, Michael P.
Gubler, W. Douglas
author_facet Choudhury, Robin A.
Sutherland, Andrew M.
Hengel, Matt J.
Parrella, Michael P.
Gubler, W. Douglas
author_sort Choudhury, Robin A.
collection PubMed
description SIMPLE SUMMARY: Some insects are beneficial to plants because they eat pest insects and disease-causing fungi; integrating the use of these insects into pest management can help to reduce the need for costly pesticide applications. Twenty-spotted ladybeetles eat plant pathogenic fungi, which helps to reduce disease severity for many economically important crops. In this study, we applied a systemic insecticide to the roots of pumpkin plants and monitored to see if it would be detectable in the spores of a plant pathogenic fungus and whether the insecticide-tainted fungal spores would hurt the ladybeetle larvae. We were able to chemically detect the systemic insecticide in the fungal spores up to 21 days after the plants had been treated with the fungus. We found that the ladybeetles raised on infected plants that had been treated with the systemic insecticide died more rapidly that ladybeetles that had been raised on uninfected or untreated plants. This study is the first to show that systemic insecticides can move from the roots of a plant, into a plant pathogenic fungus, and then have negative effects on a fungus-eating insect. It suggests that growers and land managers need to carefully consider the unintended consequences of insecticide applications. ABSTRACT: Applications of systemic pesticides can have unexpected direct and indirect effects on nontarget organisms, producing ecosystem-level impacts. We investigated whether a systemic insecticide (imidacloprid) could be absorbed by a plant pathogenic fungus infecting treated plants and whether the absorbed levels were high enough to have detrimental effects on the survival of a mycophagous beetle. Beetle larvae fed on these fungi were used to assess the survival effects of powdery mildew and imidacloprid in a factorial design. Fungal conidia were collected from treated and untreated plants and were tested for the presence and concentration of imidacloprid. The survival of beetles fed powdery mildew from imidacloprid-treated leaves was significantly lower than that of the beetles from all other treatments. Imidacloprid accumulated in fungal conidia and hyphae was detected at levels considered lethal to other insects, including coccinellid beetles. Water-soluble systemic insecticides may disrupt mycophagous insects as well as other nontarget organisms, with significant implications for biodiversity and ecosystem function.
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spelling pubmed-74691632020-09-17 Imidacloprid Movement into Fungal Conidia Is Lethal to Mycophagous Beetles Choudhury, Robin A. Sutherland, Andrew M. Hengel, Matt J. Parrella, Michael P. Gubler, W. Douglas Insects Communication SIMPLE SUMMARY: Some insects are beneficial to plants because they eat pest insects and disease-causing fungi; integrating the use of these insects into pest management can help to reduce the need for costly pesticide applications. Twenty-spotted ladybeetles eat plant pathogenic fungi, which helps to reduce disease severity for many economically important crops. In this study, we applied a systemic insecticide to the roots of pumpkin plants and monitored to see if it would be detectable in the spores of a plant pathogenic fungus and whether the insecticide-tainted fungal spores would hurt the ladybeetle larvae. We were able to chemically detect the systemic insecticide in the fungal spores up to 21 days after the plants had been treated with the fungus. We found that the ladybeetles raised on infected plants that had been treated with the systemic insecticide died more rapidly that ladybeetles that had been raised on uninfected or untreated plants. This study is the first to show that systemic insecticides can move from the roots of a plant, into a plant pathogenic fungus, and then have negative effects on a fungus-eating insect. It suggests that growers and land managers need to carefully consider the unintended consequences of insecticide applications. ABSTRACT: Applications of systemic pesticides can have unexpected direct and indirect effects on nontarget organisms, producing ecosystem-level impacts. We investigated whether a systemic insecticide (imidacloprid) could be absorbed by a plant pathogenic fungus infecting treated plants and whether the absorbed levels were high enough to have detrimental effects on the survival of a mycophagous beetle. Beetle larvae fed on these fungi were used to assess the survival effects of powdery mildew and imidacloprid in a factorial design. Fungal conidia were collected from treated and untreated plants and were tested for the presence and concentration of imidacloprid. The survival of beetles fed powdery mildew from imidacloprid-treated leaves was significantly lower than that of the beetles from all other treatments. Imidacloprid accumulated in fungal conidia and hyphae was detected at levels considered lethal to other insects, including coccinellid beetles. Water-soluble systemic insecticides may disrupt mycophagous insects as well as other nontarget organisms, with significant implications for biodiversity and ecosystem function. MDPI 2020-08-03 /pmc/articles/PMC7469163/ /pubmed/32756374 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/insects11080496 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 Communication
Choudhury, Robin A.
Sutherland, Andrew M.
Hengel, Matt J.
Parrella, Michael P.
Gubler, W. Douglas
Imidacloprid Movement into Fungal Conidia Is Lethal to Mycophagous Beetles
title Imidacloprid Movement into Fungal Conidia Is Lethal to Mycophagous Beetles
title_full Imidacloprid Movement into Fungal Conidia Is Lethal to Mycophagous Beetles
title_fullStr Imidacloprid Movement into Fungal Conidia Is Lethal to Mycophagous Beetles
title_full_unstemmed Imidacloprid Movement into Fungal Conidia Is Lethal to Mycophagous Beetles
title_short Imidacloprid Movement into Fungal Conidia Is Lethal to Mycophagous Beetles
title_sort imidacloprid movement into fungal conidia is lethal to mycophagous beetles
topic Communication
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7469163/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32756374
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/insects11080496
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