Data I’m never going to publish – factors affecting sycamore flowering and fruiting patterns

As a teenager I used to have a favourite thinking place, underneath a large beech tree half-way down the school drive.  I used to watch the activities of my school mates, while contemplatively chewing beech nuts (my school friends found this mildly disgusting).

Some years beech nuts were much easier to find than others; although I didn’t realise it at the time, this was my introduction to the phenomenon of masting.  At this point I had better fill you in on the basics of tree reproduction. Like most plants, trees reproduce by producing flowers that are pollinated, depending on the species, by vertebrates, insects or the wind. The fertilised flowers then produce seeds that are housed in what we term fruit or cones, and which in many cases aid their dispersal. Reproduction is energetically a costly process, reserves channelled to reproduction cannot be use for growth and defence.  Trees have evolved three different approaches to this problem. Some trees produce a moderate number of seeds in most years, others have an Irregular fruiting pattern and some, such as beech and oak, have strongly periodic fruiting patterns, “mast” years.  Interestingly (my wife hates me starting sentences off like this), trees that mast are wind pollinated.

Beech (Fagus sylvatica) mast production over a sixteen year period in England. Data from Hilton & Packham (1997

You might wonder why, if reproduction is costly, that some trees are ‘willing’ to expend so much energy in one go.  There are two schools of thought regarding this. One, which I find fairly convincing, is the “predator satiation” hypothesis (Janzen, 1971).  This basically says that the trees, by having on and off years, starve their specialist seed predators in the off years, thus reducing predator pressure by killing lots of them off. In the mast years, there are enough seeds to feed the surviving predators and produce another crop of trees.  A more recent, and less exciting suggestion (to me anyway), is that if the trees have a mass synchronised flowering effort, i.e. a mast year, then the chances of being pollinated are greatly increased (Moreira et al., 2014).

People tend to associate masting with trees that produce heavy fruit, acorns, hazel nuts and beech nuts for example, and I was no exception, so it wasn’t until a couple of years (1995) after I started my mega-sycamore study at Silwood Park that I had a bit of a revelation. I realised that not all of the trees flowered and that there seemed to be a lot fewer seeds that year than I remembered there being the year before. Sycamore seeds come equipped with two little wings (they are wing dispersed) and occur in little bunches (infructescences) so are quite noticeable.

Winged sycamore seed and ‘bunch’ of sycamore fruit

My sycamore study was one of my many side projects set up to satisfy my’ satiable curiosity’ and I had, at the time thought that I had made sure I was measuring everything that could possibly interact with the aphids feeding on the trees. I had, however, somehow overlooked sycamore flower production 🙂 I had taken into account that in some years the sycamore aphid can be present in huge numbers and and I was well aware from the work of my PhD supervisor

Sycamore aphids emerging in spring – some years you can see even more on the newly flushing buds

Tony Dixon, that the aphids can cause substantial losses to tree growth (Dixon, 1971), so had included tree girth and height measurements into my massive data collection list. Strangely, however, despite knowing from my work with

The effect of the sycamore aphid, Drepanosiphum platanoidis, on leaf area of two sycamore, Acer pseudoplatanus, trees over an eight year period (Dixon 1971).

the bird cherry-oat aphid Rhopalosiphum padi, that even quite low numbers of aphids could have substantial negative effects on cherry production (Leather, 1988), I had totally overlooked sycamore flowering and seed production. I am just thankful, that I only missed three years of flowering data 🙂

The effects of bird cherry aphid infestation on reproductive success of the bird cherry, Prunus padus (Leather, 1988)

Unlike the rest of my sycamore data set, the flowering data collection was actually set up to test a hypothesis; i.e. that aphid numbers affected flowering and seed set. Sycamore is in some ways similar to the well-known masting species such as oak and beech in that it is (jargon coming up) heterodichogamous. All flowers are functionally unisexual and appear sequentially on a single inflorescence. The inflorescences can however be either protandrous, i.e. male anthesis takes place before the stigmas become receptive, or protogynous where the reverse sequence takes place. Where it differs from the typical masting species is that is produces wind dispersed seeds and is wind and insect pollinated; oak, beech and hazel are entirely wind pollinated.  Pierre Binggelli, then based at the Unibersity of Ulster, hypothesised that protandrous trees may suffer less herbivore damage than protogynous trees (Binggeli, 1992). He suggested that protogynous trees, having less energy available to invest in defensive chemistry, are more attractive to insect herbivores, particularly chewers. On the other hand, sycamore trees that have been subject to previous insect infestation have fewer resources available to produce female flowers, become protandrous and avoid infestation by herbivores the following year. Presumably the next year, having escaped insect attack by being protandrous they should become protogynous again. So, if I wanted to test this hypothesis, I needed to learn how to sex sycamore flowers. Despite a handy guide that I came across (Binggeli, 1990), ) I found it almost impossible, to do, so

A. Protogynous inflorescence (female II flowers of Mode G are male II in Mode B). B. Protogynous infructescence, Mode B. C. Protogynous infructescence, Mode G. D. Protandrous inflorescence.
E. Protandrous infructescence. F. Vegetative shoot, G. Flowering shoot (Mode E).
H. Fruiting shoot (Flowering Modes B,C,D & G). (From Binggeli, 1990)

contacted Pierre, who very kindly agreed to check some of my ‘guesses’ for me.  Despite this help, I still found it very difficult so opted (very unwisely as it turned out) to collect fruit samples from each tree, put them in paper bags, and bring them back to the lab for sexing at a later date.  As you have probably guessed, I ended up with lots of paper bags which I then, not very cleverly, stored in plastic bin bags.  This went on for several years as I kept putting off the day when I would have to sit down and sex several thousand bunches of sycamore fruit. Then came the happy disastrous day when I came back from holiday to find out that the cleaners had disposed of my bin bags. To tell the truth I was not that upset as it gave me an excuse to stop collecting the fruit samples and reduced my feelings of guilt about having huge piles of unsexed sycamore fruit bunches cluttering up the lab 🙂 I did, of course, carry on counting the number of flowers on the trees, which was much easier data to collect and analyse.

I reluctantly ended my study in 2012 when I left Silwood Park for pastures new, but despite this I still haven’t analysed all my sycamore data, although I was very happy a couple of years ago when a PhD student from the University of Sheffield (Vicki Senior) volunteered to analyse some of my sycamore aphid data which was published last year (Senior et al., 2020). The winter moth data and orange ladybird data are also being analysed by a couple of my former students and hopefully will also be published by next year.

So what does the sycamore fruiting data show? Well, first, despite sycamore being reproductively somewhat atypical of other masting trees species, I would contend that my 17-year data set of sycamore fruit production looks remarkably similar to the Hilton and Packham beech masting data set. I am thus confident in stating that sycamore is a masting species.

Mean sycamore fruit production at Silwood Park, averaged from 52 trees 1996-2012,

Am I able to link sycamore seed production with aphid abundance, is the fruiting pattern a result of herbivory?  I can’t test Pierre Binggeli’s hypothesis about sex changing trees, because I lost the data, but I can try and see if aphid infestation affects fruit production. The two most common aphid species on the Silwood Park sycamore trees are the sycamore aphid Drepanosphum platanoidis and the maple aphid, Periphyllus acericola.  

Mean sycamore aphid and mean maple aphid loads (average annual counts per 40 leaves from all trees) 1996-2012.

They can both occur in high numbers, but in general, the average numbers of P. acericola are much higher than D. platanoidis. The reason why P. acericola has much higher numbers is a result of its over-summering strategy.

Over-summering morphs of the sycamore and maple aphid. Images from https://influentialpoints.com/Gallery/Drepanosiphum_platanoidis_common_sycamore_aphids.htmhttps://influentialpoints.com/Gallery/Periphyllus_acericola_Sycamore_Periphyllus_Aphid.htm#other

While the sycamore aphid spends the summer aestivating (basically a summer version of hibernation in that metabolism is reduced and reproduction ceases), the maple aphid produces a huge number of nymphs, known as dimorphs, which over-summer in dense, immobile aestivating colonies.  The sycamore aphid can escape predators by flying off the leaves if disturbed, the maple aphid dimorphs on the other hand, rely on their huge numbers to ensure survival of some of them over the summer to resume development and reproduce as autumn approaches, a form of predator satiation. They thus suffer a huge reduction in numbers compared with the sycamore aphid. (I must publish that one day). This makes drawing conclusions about the of herbivory (aphid feeding) on the trees a bit difficult.

Mean combined aphid load, showing how the number of dimorphs of the maple aphid skew the perceived aphid load.

Given that Tony Dixon showed that sycamore aphids cause a significant reduction in tree growth (Dixon, 1971), I

Relationship between mean combined aphid load (sycamore and maple aphid) and mean sycamore fruit production.

expected to see a negative relationship between aphid numbers and fruit production. What I did find was that there was a significant positive relationship between sycamore aphid numbers and fruit production, i.e. the more sycamore aphids, the more fruit produced, whereas with the maple aphid it was the other way round, more maple aphids, fewer fruit. If I combined the aphid loads, then the relationship becomes significantly positive, the more aphids you get the

Relationship between mean combined aphid load and the number of sycamore fruit produced the following year.

significantly negative relationship between aphid numbers and sycamore fruit production, but as I pointed out earlier this is driven by the preponderance of maple aphid dimorphs in the summer. You might also argue, that rather than looking at aphid numbers and sycamore fruit production in the same year, I should be comparing aphid numbers with fruit production the following year, i.e. a lag effect. I did indeed think of this, and found that there was, for both aphid species, no significant relationship between aphid numbers the previous year and fruit produced the following year. In fact, if I was an undergraduate student I would point out that there was a positive trend between aphid numbers and fruit production 🙂  If I do the same analysis using the combined aphid load, then the relationship becomes significantly positive, the more aphids you get the more sycamore fruit you get the following year which although counter-intuitive fits with the idea that stressed trees tend to produce more offspring (seeds) (Burt & Bell, 1991) and given that we know from Tony Dixon that the sycamore aphid causes a significant reduction in growth (Dixon, 1971) which is an indication of plant stress (Grime, 1979) makes perfect sense. 

Relationship between mean combined aphid load and the number of sycamore fruit produced the following year.

Instead of mean aphid load, perhaps we ought to be thinking about aphid occurrence at crucial times of the year for the tree, for example budburst. If you go back to the top of the page and look at the photograph of the infested buds you can see that there can be a huge number of aphids present at this time of year just when the trees are starting to wake up and put on new growth. Any interference to the uptake of nutrients at this phase of their life cycle could be detrimental to fruit production.  One way to measure this is by looking at the date the first aphids appear on the buds in the expectation that the earlier the aphids start to feed, the bigger their impact on the trees. Sure enough, the earlier the aphids start feeding, the lower the number of fruit produced.

Significant negative relationship between date of first appearance of aphids on the buds and number of fruit produced in spring.

Although all the relationships I have discussed and shown are significant, the amount of variation is explained is pretty low (over 20% but less than 30%). The relationship that explains most of the variation in any one year is the size of the tree, the bigger the tree the more fruit it produces.

Relationship between size of sycamore tree and number of fruit produced (2009).

As a rule of thumb, the bigger a tree the older it is and older trees have more resources and can afford to produce more offspring than younger smaller trees.

In conclusion, what I can say with confidence is that there is significant variability in sycamore fruit production between years and this is, in my opinion, evidence of masting events, and may be linked to the size and timing of aphid load but is moderated by the size and age of the trees. If you have any other suggestions please feel free to add them in the comments.

If anyone is interested in delving into the data in more depth I will be very happy to share the raw data and also the local weather data for the site.

References

Binggeli P. (1990) Detection of protandry and protogyny in sycamore (Acer pseudoplatanus L.) from infructescences. Watsonia,18, 17-20.

Binggeli P. (1992) Patterns of invasion of sycamore (Acer pseudoplatanus L.) in relation to species and ecosystem attributes. D.Phil. Thesis, The University of Ulster.

Burt, A. & Bell, G. (1991) Seed production is associated with a transient escape from parasite damage in American beech.  Oikos, 61,145–148.

Dixon, A.F.G. (1971) The role of aphids in wood formation. 1. The effect of the sycamore aphid, Drepanosiphum platanoides (Schr.) (Aphididae) on the growth of sycamore. Journal of Applied Ecology, 8, 165-179.

Hilton, G.M. & Packham, J.R. (1997) A sixteen-year record of regional and temporal variation in the fruiting of beech (Fagus sylvatica L.) in England (1980-1995). Forestry, 70, 7-16.

Hilton, G.M. & Packam, J.R. (2003) Variation in the masting of common beech (Fagus sylvatica L.) in northern Europe over two centuries (1800-2001). Forestry, 76, 319-328.

Janzen, D. H. (1971) Seed predation by animals. Annual Review of Ecology and Systematics, 2,465–492.

Leather, S.R. (1988) Consumers and plant fitness: coevolution or competition? Oikos, 53, 285-288.

Leather, S.R. (2000) Herbivory, phenology, morphology and the expression of sex in trees: who is in the driver’s seat? Oikos, 90, 194-196.

Moreira, X., L. Abdala-Roberts, Y. B. Linhart, and K. A. Mooney. (2014_. Masting promotes individual- and population-level reproduction by increasing pollination efficiency.Ecology, 95, 801–807.

Grime ., J.P. (1979) Primary strategies in plants, Transactions of the Botanical Society of Edinburgh, 43,2, 151-160.

Senior, V.L., Evans, L.C., Leather, S.R., Oliver, T.H. & Evans, K.L. (2020) Phenological responses in a sycamore-aphid-parasitoid system and consequences for aphid population dynamics; A 20 year case study. Global Change Biology, 26, 2814-2828.

Not just sailor aphids, but an aphid ship too – Insect Class Gunboats

Some of you may have come across Reaktion Books and their Animal series, which as well having the usual vertebrate suspects has a refreshingly large number of invertebrate titles, for example, Moth, Ant, Mosquito just to name those gracing my shelves. I had, at one time, the ambition of adding to the collection with Aphid :-). Unfortunately, one of the requirements for inclusion in the series is what one might call a cultural dimension, and despite being fabulously awesome, aphids have not, as yet, made a huge impact on human culture.  In spite of assiduous searching on my behalf, I have not, as yet*, managed to find many instances of aphids making it into the wider human consciousness beyond their undeserved (in my opinion) reputation as mega-pests.

My count to date is a post card, a children’s book, a postage stamp, a sculpture and two poems. Sadly, I don’t feel I can count coloured plates from entomological texts, no matter how beautiful 😦

Punk aphid postcard – adapted from the cover of an issue of New Scientist published in 1977, when our PhD group at the University of East Anglia had our fifteen minutes of fame 🙂

To my knowledge, the only children’s book (or any work of fiction for that matter), with an aphid as the main character.

The World’s classiest stamp – thank you Slovenia for recognising the importance of aphids 🙂

An artist who appreciates the beauty of aphids – Aphid on rose – Beth Biggs.

Of the two poems that mention aphids, Charles Goodrich’s is, in my opinion, the winner, so I have reproduced it in full. I am much less enamoured of Greenfly from Giles Goodland’s collection celebrating insects, The Masses, so have not shared it with you.

A Lecture on Aphids by Charles Goodrich

She plucks my sleeve.
“Young man,” she says, “you need to spray.
You have aphids on your roses.”

In a dark serge coat and a pill box hat
by god it’s my third grade Sunday school teacher,
shrunken but still stern, the town’s
most successful corporate attorney’s mother.
She doesn’t remember me. I holster
my secateurs, smile publicly,
and reply, “Ma’am,

did you know a female aphid is born
carrying fertile eggs? Come look.
There may be five or six generations
cheek by jowl on this “Peace” bud.
Don’t they remind you
of refugees
crowding the deck of a tramp steamer?
Look through my hand lens-
they’re translucent. You can see their dark innards
like kidneys in aspic.

Yes, ma’am, they are full-time inebriates,
and unashamed of their nakedness.
But isn’t there something wild and uplifting
about their complete indifference to the human prospect?”

And then I do something wicked. “Ma’am,” I say,
“I love aphids!” And I squeeze
a few dozen from the nearest bud
and eat them.

After the old woman scuttles away
I feel ill
and sit down to consider
what comes next. You see,
aphids
aren’t sweet
as I had always imagined.
Even though rose wine is their only food,
aphids
are bitter.

---

“But what about the ship?” I hear you cry.  To cut a long story short, I was looking for images of Aphis species for a lecture, when up popped a picture of a ship, HMS Aphis. I of course immediately jumped down the internet rabbit hole in pursuit and found to

HMS Aphis https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:HMS_Aphis_AWM_302297.jpeg

my delight that during the first World War, the Admiralty commissioned a class of ships, the Insect Gunboats, for the Royal Navy designed for use in shallow rivers or inshore. Twelve of these were commissioned between 1915 and 1916. They were, in alphabetical order, not in order of commission, Aphis, Bee, Cicala, Cockchafer, Cricket, Glowworm, Gnat, Ladybird, Mantis, Moth, Scarab, and surprisingly, given the huge number of candidates to choose from, a non-insect, Tarantula.

I haven’t been able to discover why someone decided to call them the Insect class or why they choose the names they did.  Most

HMS Aphis, ship’s badges – very pleased to see the siphunculi, somebody did their research.

of them are not particularly pugnacious species with the possible exceptions of the Bee, Gnat, Ladybird, Mantis and the non-insect Tarantula.

Not sure which species of ladybird this is supposed to represent but felt that as an insect often associated with aphids it deserved a mention 🙂

Lepidoptera, Hymenoptera and Diptera

HMS Glowworm – a shame that this is symbolic rather than the actual insect 😦

Sadly, none of the Insect gunboats have survived, HMS Aphis was scrapped in 1947, in Singapore of all places, and the last one, HMS Cockchafer, was sold for scrap in 1949.

Pleased as I was to discover HMS Aphis, I am still a long way off having enough cultural references to convince Reaktion Books that Aphid is a possible title in the series. The Secret Life of Aphids, is however, a real possibility :-).  Finally, if you were puzzled about the sailor aphids I mention in the title, you can satisfy your curiosity by clicking on this link.

*I continue to live in hope of discovering a hidden cache of material celebrating aphids as cultural icons 🙂

Spore shedding aphids

If you were in the European silkworm business two or three hundred years ago the last thing you wanted to find in your colony were stiff dead caterpillars. Worse still would be if when you picked them up and bent them, they snapped in half and revealed a solid white or green interior, giving them the appearance of a stick of chalk. Horror stricken you realise that your beloved silkworms have been struck down by white or green muscardine disease, or if you were an Italian, calcino; in both cases the name refers to the chalk like appearance of the inside of the stricken larvae.  By the middle of the 19^th century the combined effects of the industrial revolution, the revival of the Japanese silk industry and an epidemic of viral and fungal diseases had pretty much shut down the European silk industry (Federico, 1997). We now know that the muscardine diseases are caused by the entompathogenic fungi Beauveria bassiana and Metarhizium anisipoliae, although this was not realised until the early part of the 19^th Century when the Italian naturalist Agostino Bassi discovered their true nature.

So what about the aphids I hear you asking? I have written earlier about the attacks that aphids have to suffer from predators and parasitoids, but that is not all with which they have to contend.  Fungal diseases (Dean &Wilding, 1973; Rabasse et al., 1982; Aqueel & Leather, 2013) also attack aphids in the same way that they attack most other insects.  In the case of aphids, it is not one of the muscardines, instead they are attacked by a number of fungi belonging to the Entomophthoraceae. The first member of this family to be recognised as a fungus was named Empusa musca (now Entomophthora muscae) by Charles de Geer in 1782 (Cohn, 1855). As the name suggests, it attacks house flies. There are, however, a number of different entomopathogenic fungi that specialise in attacking aphids, Erynia neoaphidis, and other members of the Entomophtoraceae, being the most commonly seen (Dean & Wilding,

An aphid unfortunate enough to encounter an insect infecting fungal spore and lacking the appropriate symbionts (Parker et al., 2013) is very likely to suffer a slow and lingering death as the fungal mycelia proliferate within its body.

Aphid infected by Pandora (Erynia) neopahidis https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Pandora_neoaphidis.jpg

Pandora neoaphidis infected pea aphids (photo Tom Pope)

On landing on a susceptible aphid, the fungal spore germinates and the germ tube penetrates the aphid, either directly through the cuticle or via a nearby spiracle.  Unlike those other invidious invaders of aphids, the parasitoids, entomopathogenic fungi need very specific environmental conditions to successfully colonise their aphid hosts. The damper the better, and if the aphid is surrounded by liquid water the more likely the fungus is to be able to effect an entry (Wilding, 1969; Dean & Wilding, 1973).  More than a century ago Paul Hayhurst of Harvard University noticed that galls of the Chenopodium aphid, Hayhurstia atriplicis (then known as Aphis atriplicis) that were ruptured and had allowed water in, had a much higher incidence of diseased aphids than the intact galls (Hayhurst, 1909). Another more recent indication of this dependence on damp conditions is a mention of a high incidence of Pandora neoaphidis (described as Empusa aphidis) on Schizolachnus pini-radiatae being associated with higher than average rainfall (Grobler, 1962). 

The earliest experiment involving aphid specific entompathogenic fungi that I have been able to find is from the latter half of the 19^th Century (Houghton & Phillips, 1885). 

“I placed some infected aphides under a glass with healthy specimens from my garden-beans and in a short time these became similarly covered with the same red-coloured fungoid growth. The n*****s took the scarlet fever and died.”

Their conclusion was that it was an Entomopthora species, perhaps related to, if not, E. planchoniana.

Although fungal pathogens have been shown to be able to reduce aphid populations in the field (Fluke*, 1925; Grobler et al., 1962; Plantegenest et al., 2001), their effectiveness as biological control agents on their own is variable and unpredictable (Milner, 1997).  Most often, they are used either as biopesticides, or in conjunction with parasitoids and predators (e.g. Milner, 1997; Aqueel & Leather, 2013). One of the problems that entompathogenic fungi have is ‘finding’ their hosts.  While it is known that entompathogenic fungi, as with entomopathogenic viruses, affect the behaviour of many insect that they attack (Hughes et al., 2011), by making them move to locations on their host plant where they are more likely to infect their kin, as far as I know, there is only one record of this for aphids (Harper, 1958).  Surely a productive avenue of research to follow? That said, these clever fungi have another option up their mycelial sleeves.  They are, like other fungi, able to discharge their spores explosively.  Erynia neopahidis can project its spores more than 3mm vertically and more than 5 mm horizontally (Hemmati et al., 2001). This may seem a tiny distance to you and me, but the spores only need to get further than 2 mm to get air borne and move on to other plants or plant parts.  It might be a leap into the unknown but it seems to work out all right for the fungi 🙂

References

Aqueel, M.A. & Leather, S.R. (2013) Virulence of Verticillium lecanii (Z.) against cereal aphids; does timing of infection affect the performance of parasitoids and predators? Pest Management Science, 69, 493-498.

Cohn, F. (1855) Empusa muscae und die Krankeit der Stubenfliegen  Nova acta Academiae

Caesareae Leopoldino-Carolinae Germanicae Naturae Curiosorum, 25, 301-360

Dean, G.J. & Wilding, N. (1973) Infection of cereal aphids by the fungus Entomophthora. Annals of Applied Biology, 74, 133-138.

Federico, G. (1997 ) An Economic History of the Silk Industry, 1830-1930. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.

Fluke, C.L. (1925) Natural enemies of the pa aphid (Illinoia pisi Kalt.); their abundance and distribution in Wisconsin.  Journal of Economic Entomology, 18, 612-616.

Grobler, J.H., MacLeod, D.M. & Delyzer, A.J. (1962) The fungus Empusa aphidis Hoffman parasitic on the wooly pine needle aphid, Schizolachnus pini-radiatae (Davidson). Canadian Entomologist, 94, 46-49.

Harper, A.M. (1958) Notes on behaviour of Pemphigus betae Doane (Homoptera: Aphididae) Infected with Entomophthora aphidis Hoffm. Canadian Entomologist, 90, 439-440.

Hayhurst, P. (1909) Observations on a gall aphid (Aphis atriplicis L.). Annals of the Entomological Society of America, 2, 88-100.

Hemmati, F., Pell, J.K., McCartney, H.A., Clark, S.J. & Deadman, M.L. (2001) Conidial discharge in the aphid pathogen Erynia neoaphidis. Mycological Research, 105, 715-722.

Hughes, D.P., Andersen, S.B., Hywel-Jones, N.L. , Himaman, W., Billen, J. & Boomsma, J. (2011) Behavioral mechanisms and morphological symptoms of zombie ants dying from fungal infection. BMC Ecology, 11, 13.

Milner, R.J. (1997) Prospects for biopesticides fro aphid control. Entomophaga, 42, 227-239.

Parker, B.J., Spragg, C.J., Altincicek, B. & Gerardo, N.M. (2013) Symbiont-mediated protection against fungal pathogens in pea aphids: a role for pathogen specificity. Applied & Environmental Microbiology, 79, 2455-2458.

Plantegenest, M., Pierre, J.S., Dedryver, C.A. & Kindlmann, P. (2001) Assessment of the relative impact of different natural enemies on population dynamics of the grain aphid Sitobion avenae in the field. Ecological Entomology, 26, 404-410.

Rabasse, J.M., Dedryver, C.A., Molionari, J. & Lafont, J.P. (1982) Facteurs de limitation des populations d’Aphis fabae dans l’Ouest de la France 4. Nouvelles donnees sur le deroulement des epizooties entomophtoracees sur feverole de printemps. Entomophaga, 27, 39-53.

Roditakis, E., Couzin, J.D., K., B., Franks, N.R. & Charnley, R.K. (2000) Improving secondary pick up of insect fungal pathogen conidia by manipulating host behaviour. Annals of Applied Biology, 137, 329-335.

Wilding, N. (1969) Effect of humidity on the sporulation of Entomophthora aphidis and E. thaxteriana. Transactions of the British Mycological Society, 53, 126-130.

*I had to include this reference as he mentions the aphidozer whatever that is! I can only guess as he doesn’t explain in his methods or cite a reference:-)

Not all aphids live on the underside of leaves

If I were to misquote Jane Austen and state “It is a truth universally acknowledged, that aphids are found on the underside of leaves” most people who know what aphids are would agree without quibbling. If natural enemies could speak, they would probably agree as this quote from an early paper by my former boss, Hugh Evans puts it  “since most aphids are found on the lower surfaces of leaves anthocorids must be wasting time in searching the upper leaf surface” (Evans, 1976). The only enemies that regularly search the upper surface of leaves are parasitoids, which use aphid honeydew as a host-findng cue (e.g. Volkl, 1994), which is where it falls if the leaves above them are infested with aphids.  We know that not all aphids feed on leaves, many using roots, flowers, stems and even tree trunks as their preferred feeding sites, but do all leaf-feeding aphids behave in the same way?

A few species of leaf-dwelling aphid buck the trend and live on the upper surface of leaves. Dogma has it that most leaf-feeding aphids prefer the underside because there are more stomata there and this makes access to the phloem easier.

Aphis grossulariae on the underside of a gooseberry leaf, – only revealed because I turned the leaf over.

Look, however, at a neat experiment that Graham Hopkins and Tony Dixon did (Hopkins & Dixon, 2000). They showed that the birch aphid Euceraphis betulae, which is normally found on the lower surface of leaves, will, if the leaves are held so that the upper surface faces the ground, move from the now facing upward lower surface to the now facing downward upper surface. The answer can’t all be to do with the stomata. That said, in grasses and other monocotyledonous plants, there are more stomata on the upper surface of the leaves andmMany grass-feeding aphids do seem to have a predilection for the upper surface. The green spruce aphid, Elatobium abietinum, another aphid that has a very strong preference for feeding through stomata, is found mainly on the upper surface of spruce needles which are where the stomata are more prevalent (Parry, 1971).

Utamophoraphora humboltdi feeding on the upper surface of Poa annua outside my office.

The Green Spruce Aphid, Elatobium abietinum feeding on the upper surface of spruce needles (Albrecht (2017)

It is possible, however, that the preference for the upper surface of grasses is not entirely due to the relative abundance of stomata there.  The grass aphid, Sipha kurdjumovi for example, although most commonly found feeding on the upper surface of grass and cereal leaves, prefers to settle on a concave ridged surface (Dixon & Shearer, 1974), a characteristic of the upper surface of many grasses  Lewton-Brain, 1904). Another advantage to living on the upper surface of grass leaves is that when grasses want to conserve water they roll inwards along the mid-vein, which has the added benefit of hiding the aphids and protecting them from their natural enemies.

Mainly, however, if you are an aphid, you feed where the stomata are plentiful, hence the tendency for aphids living on monocotyledonous plants to feed mainly on the upper surface of leaves, instead of the lower surface.  Conversely, a leaf-feeding aphid on a dicotyledonous host plant would be expected to feed on the lower surface of the leaves, where there are more stomata.  It also makes sense for those aphids to be underneath the leaf, as there is less chance of them being knocked off by the rain or being dislodged by leaves brushing against each other in the wind.

There are, however, two tree-dwelling aphids in the UK that live on the upper side of the leaves of their woody hosts, the very rare Monaphis antennata on birch (Hopkins & Dixon, 1997) and the less rare large walnut aphid, Panaphis juglandis on walnut (Heie, 1982). So what makes these aphids so contrary? According to Graham Hopkins and Tony Dixon (Hopkins & Dixon, 1997), M. antennata is taking advantage of enemy-free space and to compensate for living on top of the leaf is cryptic to avoid detection by enterprising predators, and has a flattened and contoured body shape to avoid accidental dislodgement.

When it comes to P. juglandis things are bit more conjectural.  Interestingly, despite being a pest in some parts of the world (e.g. Wani & Ahmad, 2014) we don’t know much about it. It is also hard to understand why it has adopted the upper side of the leaf as its habitat.  One very obvious downside

Panaphis juglandis – prominently lined up along the mid-vein of the upper surface of a walnut leaf and displaying their possible unpalatability by their conspicuous yellow and black colouration.  From Influential Points  https://influentialpoints.com/Images/Panaphis_juglandis_nymphs_on-vein_c2013-07-06_18-35-17ew.jpg

is that by so doing it has opened Itself up to competition from the other common walnut aphid, Chromaphis juglandicola, the honeydew of which falls from the leaves like acid rain on to P. juglandis and prevents them living on the same trees (Olson, 1974; Wani & Ahmad, 2014).  In the absence of C. juglandicola it is, however, very successful with a number of life history traits that presumably ensure its survival, although no one has quantified this. First, it is striped yellow and black, a clear warning sign.  Bob Dransfield and Bob Brightwell who run that fantastic site, Influential Points, suggest that perhaps P. juglandis sequesters juglone from its walnut host as a defence against predators. It therefore makes sense to advertise it by being conspicuously coloured.  Second, they also, point out that the way in which the nymphs line up along the mid-vein might act as a form of masquerade mimicry or disruptive camouflage, by looking from certain angles like a blemish caused  by a fungal disease or injury. Neither of these suggestions answer the question as to why it lives on the upper side of leaves. For M. antennata, escape from natural enemies and competition are cited as the reason why it lives where it does.  Neither seem to explain P. juglandis, as it is not, at least according to Olson (1974), safe from predation and parasitism, although there is some indication that it might be ant-attended (Fremlin, 2016), nor is it able to share its host plant with the other walnut specialist, Chromaphis juglandicola. On the other hand, unlike M. antennata, it is most definitely not a rarity.

As they used to say when I was young, “answers on a postcard please”. In the meantime, until someone has the time and inclination to delve into this intriguing conundrum, I guess we should add it to Ole Heie’s list of unsolved aphid mysteries 🙂

 

References

Albrecht, A. (2017) Illustrated identification guide to the Nordic aphids feeding on conifers (Pinophyta) (Insecta, Hemiptera, Sternorhyncha, Aphidomorpha). European Journal of Taxonomy, 338, 1-160.

Dixon, A.F.G. & Shearer, J.W. (1974) Factors determining the distribution of the aphid, Sipha kurdjumovi on grasses. Entomologia experimentalis et applicata, 17, 439-444.

Evans, H.F. (1976) The searching behaviour of Anthocoris confusus (Reuter) in relation to prey density and plant surface topography. Ecological Entomology, 1, 163-169.

Fremlin, M. (2016) The large walnut aphid (Panaphis juglandis Goeze) – A few observations. Nature in North-East Essex, 2016, 68-76.

Heie, O.E. (1982) Fauna Entomologia Scandinavia, Vol. 11. The Aphidoidea (Hemiptera) of Fennoscandia and Denmark. II. The family Drepanosiphidae. Scandinavian Science Press, Klampenbourg, Denmark.

Heie, O.E. (2009) Aphid mysteries not yet solved/Hemiptera:Aphidomorpha./. Monograph Aphids and Other Hemipterous Insects, 15, 31-48.

Hopkins, G.W. & Dixon, A.F.G. (1997) Enemy-free space and the feeding niche of an aphid. Ecological Entomology, 22, 271-274.

Hopkins, G.W. & Dixon, A.F.G. (2000) Feeding site location in birch aphids (Sternorrhyncha: Aphididae): the simplicity and reliability of cues. European Journal of Entomology, 97, 279-280.

Lewton-Brain, L. (1904). VII. On the anatomy of the leaves of British grasses. Transactions of the Linnaean Society of London, Botany, Series 2, 6, 312-359.

Olson, W.H. (1974) Dusky-veined walnut aphid studies. California Agriculture, 28, 18-19.

Parry, W.H. (1971) Differences in the probing behaviour of Elatobium abietinum feeding on Sitka and Norway spruces. Annals of Applied Biology, 69, 177-185.

Volkl, W. (1994) Searching at different spatial scales: the foraging behaviour of the aphid parasitoid Aphidius rosae in rose bushes. Oecologia, 100, 177-183.

Wani, S.A. & Ahmad, S.T. (2014). Competition and niche-partitioning in two species of walnut aphids. International Journal of Scientific Research and Reviews 3, 120 – 125.

Willmer, C. & Fricker W (1996)  Stomata, Springer, Berlin.

On rarity, apparency and the indisputable fact that most aphids are not pests

I am willing to bet that when most entomologists are out for a walk spend most of their time looking at the ground or the vegetation between the ground and head height. Lepidopterists and odonatologists may be the exceptions that prove the rule, but most of us spend a lot of time looking for things lurking in dung, hiding under stones or bark, scurrying around in the undergrowth or making holes in leaves 🙂

Tell-tale signs for an entomologist that something is or has been enjoying a meal

I’m an entomologist, I’m trained to look out for signs of insect infestations; curled leaves as in the above picture tell me that almost certainly an aphid and her offspring have been at work, sticky leaves alert me to the fact that there are aphids above me in the canopy of a tree. Leaves with holes tell me that a beetle or caterpillar has been at work. Leaves spun together with a silk web tell me a similar story. Plants with their stems and leaves stripped right back inform me that sawfly, lepidoptera and beetle larvae have been at work. A fancy spiral of brown or white on a leaf tells me that a leafminer has been, or is at work. In some cases the insect may not be there when I see the damage, the curled leaves caused by an aphid or psyllid infestation remain there until leaf fall, the chances of finding a caterpillar feeding on the very obviously shot-holed leaves of a plant are slim.  Like all sensible herbivores, the culprit will be in hiding closer to the stem, only sporadically popping out to feed.  On the other hand it may have fallen victim to a visually acute predator (bird) that was attracted to the leaf by the tell-tale feeding signs, or been eaten by a predatory insect or  have been parasitized by an ichneumonid wasp.  Plants are a lot less passive than people think. By producing the equivalent of an immune response they cause the insects to move to different feeding sites to make more holes effectively advertising their presence to potential predators.  Simultaneously, the plant sends out chemical signals telling insect predators and parasites that there is a meal or host available.  An herbivore’s lot is not an easy one.

The Covid-19 crisis means that I have been working from home in a hamlet on the Staffordshire/Shropshire border.  To keep myself reasonably sane and moderately physically healthy I have been treating myself to a lunchtime walk along the bridleways, footpaths and public roads within a 5 km radius of my house. As a result I have become much more familiar with the area. One of the things that has been very obvious, apparent even, is that some plants dominate the roadside verges, cow parsley Anthricus sylvestris being one that really stands

Cow parsley – very common and abundant, occurring in huge swathes around Forton and Sutton and in this case and in many other sites along my walks, backed by the equally apparent hawthorn (Crataegusus monogyna) hedge.

out from the crowd at this time of the year. Not only is it very apparent, but it provides a great source of nectar for the spring butterflies such as the Orange Tip and the assorted bumblebees, solitary bees and hoverflies, that despite the anthropogenic pressures put upon them, still manage to make an appearance.  Nettles, as I particularly noticed when having to social distance myself from the sweaty joggers and cyclists taking advantage of the virtually deserted country lanes, also play a prominent role in the roadside plant community. Also very common, but showing a much patchier distribution and occurring in clumps, including in my garden, is the ribwort plantain, Plantago lanceolata, which is yet another so called weed*, that is perfect for pollinators.

Ribwort plantain – common but patchy and clumped – this clump in my garden where it is safe from forks and herbicides.

Although both the cow parsley and plantain were buzzing with pollinators, they were, and still are at time of writing, singularly devoid of herbivores, including my favourite aphids. Conversely, the odd scattered bird cherries (Prunus  padus) and the solitary self-seeded wild cherry (Prunus avium) in my garden are proudly sporting the characteristic leaf rolls caused by the bird cherry aphid, Rhopaloisphum padi and the cherry black fly, Myzus cerasi respectively.

Note that both these trees were not growing near any of their relatives and were surrounded and overtopped by other plant species, so as far as humans are concerned not very apparent.

This got me to wondering why it was, that, the to me, and presumably other humans, the very obvious cow parsley and plantains, were not covered in plant feeding insects, while the less apparent cherries were heavily infested by their respective aphids.  After all, according to Richard Root, large swathes of monocultures are likely to be easily found and colonised by pests. Plant apparency was first defined by the British born, American based ecologist Paul Feeny in the mid-1970s.

“The susceptibility of an individual plant to discovery by its enemies may be influenced not only by its size, growth form and persistence, but also by the relative abundance of its species within the overall community. To denote the interaction of abundance, persistence and other plant characteristics which influence likelihood of discovery, I now prefer to describe “bound to be found” plants by the more convenient term “apparent”, meaning “visible, plainly seen, conspicuous, palpable, obvious” (Shorter Oxford English Dictionary, 3rd, edition; Webster’s Concise English Dictionary). Plants which are “hard to find” by their enemies will be referred to as “unapparent”, the antonym of apparent (O.E.D. and Webster, loco cit.). The vulnerability of an individual plant to discovery by its enemies may then be referred to as its “apparency”, meaning “the quality of being apparent; visibility” (O.E.D. and Webster, loco cit.). Since animals, fungi and pathogens may use means other than vision to locate their host-plants, I shall consider apparency to mean “susceptibility to discovery” by whatever means enemies may employ” Feeny (1976).

So, even though cow parsley is highly visible and apparent to us humans, and their pollinators, because it is an annual and thus ephemeral within the landscape, it is not necessarily apparent to the herbivores that want to feed on it. Conversely, trees, such as bird cherry, although not necessarily apparent to us, are apparent to insect herbivores because they are large and long-lived. How does this affect the way in which plants avoid being found and eaten by insect herbivores?

Peter Price, another British born American based ecologist very neatly summarised Paul’s hypothesis as follows. 

Long-lived trees which are bound to be found by herbivores, invest heavily in costly chemical defence with broad-spectrum efficacy.   These quantitative defences are expensive but the cost is tolerable for a long-lived plant.  Short-lived plants are less easily detected by herbivores, and their best defence is being hard to find in patchy and ephemeral sites.  Low cost defences are effective against generalist herbviores should plants be found.  Instead of tannins and other digestibility reducers found as defences in long-lived plants, short-lived plants have evolved with mustard oils (glucosinolates) in crucifers, for example, alkaloids in the potato family, furanocoumarins in the carrot family (Price, 2003).

All I can say is that the quantitative defences of the trees don’t seem to be doing as good a job as the less expensive ones of the cow parsley, plantains and nettles.  As an aside, it turns out that although both cow parsley and plantain have a lot of medicinal uses, their chemistry does include some insecticides (Adler et al., 1995; Milovanovic et al., 1996). Cheap and cheerful seems to be the answer for an herbivore-free life in this case 🙂 Earlier I referred to cow parsley and plantains as being common.  What does that mean? According to Wikipedia (where else would I go?),

 “Common species and uncommon species are designations used in ecology to describe the population status of a species. Commonness is closely related to abundance. Abundance refers to the frequency with which a species is found in controlled samples; in contrast, species are defined as common or uncommon based on their overall presence in the environment. A species may be locally abundant without being common.

However, “common” and “uncommon” are also sometimes used to describe levels of abundance, with a common species being less abundant than an abundant species, while an uncommon species is more abundant than a rare species.”

In the UK we have a conservation designation, Sites of Special Scientific Interest, the criteria for selection which can be found here. To save you the trouble of reading the whole document, the way in which rarity and scarcity are defined is as follows.

Nationally Rare (15 or fewer UK hectad (10 km squares) records)

Nationally Scarce – Notable A (31-100 UK hectad records),

Nationally Scarce – Notable B (16-30 hectad records.

Local – (101-300 UK hectad records)

Okay, so what has all this to do with aphids and their pest status? As you all probably know by now I love aphids; as far as I am concerned, where insects are concerned, they are the bee’s knees**.

Unfortunately, aphids get a terrible press, most of it, in my opinion, undeserved.

Just a couple of examples of aphids getting a biblically bad press.

A few years ago, I wrote a short piece about the fact that only a minority of the so far 5600 or so aphids described, are pests, and many are very rare. The cover of this issue of New Scientist from 1977, which appeared a few months after I joined the group, very nicely sums up the question that we really ought to be asking. Here I have to confess that the article from our lab (McLean et al., 1977), made the case for aphids being pests, and it was the late Denis Owen who defended aphids (Owen, 1977).

Tony Dixon’s cereal aphid research group (of which I was proud to be a member) got more than just a mention in this issue.

Two plants that I have a particular interest in are sycamore and bird cherry, mainly because of their aphids, but in the case of the bird cherry, I love its flowers.  Now, although both have very similar distributions and occurrences to cow parsley and ribwort plantain, ubiquitous, they are much easier

Distribution of cow parsley, ribwort plantain, and sycamore and bird cherry in the British Isles (Atlas of the British Flora)

to find aphids on than both cow parsley and plantain.  On my daily walks during which I pass countless cow parsley and plantain plants, I have, so far, only found one cow parsley with aphids on and not a single plantain has shown any signs of aphid infestation . I have also, only found one nettle plant with Microlophium carnosum on it.  Cow parsley has a number of aphid species that use it as a secondary host migrating there from willows or hawthorns. Plantains also serve as host plants to aphids, some such as Dysaphis plantaginea host alternate, others such as Aphis plantaginis, do not. The latter species, if present, is almost always ant attended (Novgorodova & Gavrilyuk, 2012), which, if you know what you are looking for, makes it easy to spot.  I know what to look for and so far, have not found any! Nettles are also very common in the roadside verges, and they too have aphids that love them, Microlophium carnosum and Aphis urticata, the former a favourite prey of ants, the latter, farmed by the ants.  So far this year I have only found one small colony of M. carnosum, and believe me, I have been looking.

So what about the trees? Sycamores are a common sight on my walks, occurring both as hedges and as solitary trees or sometime in small groups. Almost all the large trees have sycamore aphids, Drepanosiphum platanoidis feeding on their leaves, and many have dense colonies of the maple aphid, Periphyllus testudinaceus, some with ants in attendance. Bird cherry is not as common on my walks and where I have found it, they have been small trees or shrubs usually on their own, and surrounded by other woody plants. Without exception, all have been conspicuously infested by the bird-cherry oat aphid.  To summarise, we have common plants that support aphids that are not regarded as rare, but find startlingly different levels of abundance of them here in Staffordshire, and in my experience, elsewhere.  At the same time that I have been actively searching for aphids, six species of butterfly that the Woodland Trust lists as common, have been hard to miss.  In order of sightings these are the Orange Tip, the Peacock, the Small Tortoiseshell, the Speckled Wood, the Holly Blue and the Brimstone, two of which, the Peacock and the Small Tortoiseshell, being nettle feeders as larvae. Despite the abundance of nettles in the hedgerows, So far I have only seen one small colony of Small Tortoiseshell larvae on the of nettles. I am, at this juncture, unable to resist mentioning that adults of the Holly Blue feed on aphid honeydew J Going back to my original point, the fact that I have seen more butterflies than aphids doesn’t necessarily mean that the aphids are less abundant, just less apparent.

There are at least 614 species of aphid in the UK (Bell et al., 2015). I am not sure how many I have seen, I stopped keeping a personal tick list many years ago, but I would guess that I have seen about half of them.  I like aphids, I look for aphids, but there are many ‘common’ species that I have never seen. I have, however, seen some of the rare ones. Four that stand out in my memory are Monaphis antnenata, Stomapahis graffii, Myzocallis myricae and Maculolachnus submacula. The first feeds on the upper surface of birch leaves (Hopkins & Dixon, 1997) and was shown to me by the late Nigel Barlow, when he was on a sabbatical at Silwood Park. Stomaphis graffii which feeds under the bark of sycamores and maples and is ant attended, was shown to me by an MSc student, Andrew Johnson, also at Silwood Park.  Myzocallis myricae, the bog myrtle aphid, only found on bog myrtle (Myrica gale) (Hopkins et al., 2002), I saw in the Highlands of Scotland, when Tony Dixon asked me to stop the car so he could go and look at a clump of bog myrtle he had spotted as we drove along between field sites. The giant rose aphid, Maculolachnus submacula, I saw in my garden in Norwich (84 Earlham Road) when I was a PhD student at the University of East Anglia.  I only found it because I wondered why there was an ant nest reaching halfway up one of my roses.  When I looked, I found that they were farming the aphids that were feeding on the lower stems.

It is important to remember that most aphids are host-specific, some feeding only on a single plant species, others being confined to a single genus with only a minority having a wide host range*** and considered pests (Dixon, 1998). Given this, it is obvious that aphids with rare host plants are also going to be rare (Hopkins et al., 2002).  Many aphids are also very fussy about their niche, either feeding on a very particular part of a plant or having a very close association with a particular species of ant.  Looking at the aphids that the two Bobs (Influential Points it seems that aphids that are rare  are also ant-attended.  Given, that many ant-attended aphids aren’t rare it would seem an interesting area to pursue. Perhaps it is the degree of ant-attendance, i.e. facultative versus obligate that is the key factor?

If you look at the list of species of insects that are regarded as endangered and worthy of conservation in the UK, the overwhelming impression is that unless they are big and pretty they don’t get a look in.  Needless to say, despite their beauty and fascinating life styles, no aphids are included in the list L

We really should be conserving aphids, not squashing them. Many provide important nutrition for ants and other pollinators, honeydew.  They are an important source of food for insects and birds (Cowie & Hinsley, 1988).  Aphids also help plants grow by feeding mycorrhizae with their honeydew (Owen, 1980; Milcu et al., 2015). Finally, as aphids are so host specific using the presence of uncommon species in suction traps could help identify sites with rare plants.

Aphids, rare, useful and much maligned, time to rethink their role.

 

References

Adler, L.S., Schmitt, J. & Bowers, M.D. (1995) Genetic variation in defensive chemistry in Plantago lanceolata (Plantaginaceae) and its effect on the specialist herbivore Junonia coenia (Nymphalidae). Oecologia, 101, 75-85.

Bell, J.R., Alderson, L., Izera, D., Kruger, T., Parker, S., Pickup, J., Shortall, C.R., Taylor, M.S., Verier, P. & Harrington, R. (2015) Long-term phenological trends, species accumulation rates, aphid traits and climate: five decades of change in migrating aphids. Journal of Animal Ecology, 84, 21-34.

Cowie, R.J. & Hinsley, S.A. (1988) Feeding ecology of great tits (Parus major) and blue tits (Parus caeruleus), breeding in suburban gardens. Journal of Animal Ecology, 57, 611-626.

Dixon, A.F.G. (1998) Aphid Ecology. Chapman & Hall, London.

Feeny, P. (1976) Plant apparency and chemical defence. Recent Advances in Phytochemistry, 10, 1-40.

Hopkins, G.W. & Dixon, A.F.G. (1997) Enemy-free space and the feeding niche of an aphid. Ecological Entomology, 22, 271-274.

Hopkins, G.W., Thacker, J.I.T., Dixon, A.F.G., Waring, P. & Telfer, M.G. (2002) Identifying rarity in aphids: the importance of host plant range. Biological Conservation, 105, 293-307.

McLean, I., Carter, N. & Watt, A. (1977) Pests out of Control. New Scientist, 76, 74-75.

Milcu, A., Bonkowski, H., Collins, C.M. & Crawley, M.J. (2015) Aphid honeydew-induced changes in soil biota can cascade up to tree crown architecture. Pedobiologia, 58, 119-127.

Milovanovic, M., Stefanovic, M., Djermanovic, V., & Milovanovic, J. (1996). Some chemical constituents of Anthriscus sylvestris. Journal of Herbs, Spices & Medicinal Plants, 4, 17–22. Eugenol – insecticide

Novgorodova, T.A. & Gavrilyuk, A.V. (2012). The degree of protection different ants (Hymenoptera: Formicidae) provide aphids (Hemiptera: Aphididae) against aphidophages European Journal of Entomology, 109, 187-196.

Owen, D.F. (1977) Are aphids really plant pests? New Scientist, 76, 76-77.

Owen, D.F. (1980) How plants may benefit from the animals that eat them. Oikos, 35, 230-235.

Price, P.W. (2003) Macroecological Theory on Macroecological Patterns, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.

Thacker, J.I., Hopkins, G.W. & Dixon, A.F.G. (2006) Aphids and scale insects on threatened trees: co-extinction is a minor threat. Oryx, 40, 233-236.

Uusitalo, M. (2004) European Bird Cherry (Pruns padus L). A Biodiverse Wild Plant for Horticulture. MTT Agrifood Research Finland, Jokioinen.

*It never ceases to amaze me how many keen gardeners are determined to weed out all the native nectar bearing plants (wees) in their gardens and replace them with useless, gaudy, domesticated, infertile and non-native prima donnas and green deserts!

** https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/the_bee%27s_knees    

***Hugh Loxdale however, would argue that all insects are specialists and that so called polyphagous species are, in reality, cryptic specialist species (Loxdale, H.D., Lushai, G. & Harvey, J.A. (2011) The evolutionary improbablity of ‘generalism’ in nature, with special reference to insects. Biological Journal of the Linnean Society, 103, 1-18.)

 

Aphids galore, les pucerons à gogo – UK-France Joint Meeting on Aphids – April 3rd to 5th 2019

The giant aphid – a fitting start to an aphid conference, albeit taxonomically suspect 😊

I have just returned from a very enjoyable two-day meeting at Rothamsted Research Station in Harpenden.  This was a follow-up to the very enjoyable meeting we had in Paris in 2015 which made me ask somewhat facetiously, if pea aphids ruled the world 😊 As with the Paris meeting, this recent meeting was jointly organised by Jean-Christophe Simon and Richard Harrington with some input by me.  There were ninety delegates, and not just from France and the UK; we had a keynote speaker from Japan, Tsutomu Tsuchida, and also speakers from Belgium, the Czech Republic, Germany, Ireland and Switzerland.

Tsumato Tsuchida, me, Richard Harrington, Julie Jaquiéry, Jean-Christophe Simon and Richard Blackman.

Our other three keynote speakers included two of the doyens of the aphid world, Roger Blackman and Helmut van Emden   and Julie Jaquiéry from the University of Rennes.  As with the Paris meeting, many of the talks were about the pea aphid and symbionts.  Other aphids did, however, get mentioned, including my favourite aphid, Rhopaloisphum padi, which featured in an excellent talk by PhD student Amma Simon from Rothamsted, who is supervised by one of my former students, Gia Aradottir.  There was an excellent poster session, a tribute to the late great, Ole Heie from Mariusz Kanturski, a fabulous film by Urs Wyss, which included shocking scenes of lime aphids being torn apart by vicious predators, and of course the conference dinner.

It would take too long to describe all the talks, so I will let the pictures tell the story of a very enjoyable meeting.  Hopefully we will all meet again in France in 2023.

Great talks and a packed lecture theatre

Food and chat

Very animated poster sessions

Three senior aphidologists in action,  Helmut Van Emden, Hugh Loxdale and Roger Blackman

Richard Harrington presenting Roger Blackman and ‘Van’ van Emden with the Award of the Golden Aphid – the lighting in the conference dining area was very peculiar 😊

Strange lighting at the conference dinner

From the Urs Wyss film– lime aphid moulting

The giant aphid having a quick snack

And in case you wondered, there were embryos inside the giant aphid 🙂

Many thanks to the Royal Entomological Society and BAPOA/INRA for funding.

And here are most of the delegates on the final day

Aphids don’t suck sap! (usually)

Aphids are sap feeding, most of the time they feed from the phloem, or sieve elements, that part of the plant responsible for transporting the food made in the leaves by photosynthesis, around the plant.  Aphids face three problems arising from their phloem feeding habit. First, the phloem sap is largely composed of sugars, with a few trace elements and nitrogen in the form of soluble amino acids.  The aphids are mainly interested in the nitrogen and that poses the second problem, the amino acids are mainly non-essential ones.  Thirdly, the phloem is under pressure, figures range from 2 to 40 Bars* (about twice to forty times atmospheric pressure) (e.g. Mittler, 1957; Rogers & Peel, 1975; Barlow & Randall, 1978; Wright & Fisher, 1980).  Imagine that you are trapped in an air-tight room and your only source of air is an inflated tractor tyre.   You have a sharp metal straw which you can stick into the tyre to release the air into your mouth.  If you put one end of the straw in your mouth and then pierced the tyre wall, your head would explode.

Sadly I couldn’t find a picture of an exploding aphid and my cartoon version was a failure, so this is it 🙂

Aphids face the same sort of pressure. Fortunately evolution has provided them with a very strong pharyngeal pump and incorporated a series of valves in their mouth-parts (stylets = straw) with which they are able to control the flow of the phloem into their bodies.  The last thing they want to do when plugged into the phloem is suck, it would be the last thing they did 🙂 and that’s why aphidologists get upset when people describe aphids as sap-suckers!

 

Aphid feeding apparatus – adapted from McLean & Kinsey (1984)

To be fair, we are being somewhat pedantic, the fluid transported in the xylem tubes, largely water, is also colloquially known as plant sap. The xylem, unlike the phloem is not under pressure (Sperry et al., 1996), so on those rare occasions when the aphid does need to drink water, they do have to suck sap (Spiller et al., 1990).  The other occasion on which aphids need to suck rather than regulate the flow of sap is when they are feeding in very artificial laboratory situations, on leaf discs or on artificial diets where the nutrient solution is between two pieces of Parafilm™.  In both these cases there is negative pressure and the cibarial pump does then come into operation. Interestingly, it is sometimes quite difficult to get aphids to feed on artificial diets unless a phagostimulant is included to overcome their reluctance to feed on sap that is not under pressure (Mittler & Dadd, 1963), but that’s a story for a future post.

Aphids feeding on leaf discs, in this case for insecticide assays at Rothamsted Research

 

Aphids feeding on artificial diet through Parafilm™. Photo Meena Haribal https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/12/151216151742.htm

 

References

Barlow, C.A. & Randolph, P. A.  (1978) Quality and quantity of plant sap available to the pea aphid.  Annals of the Entomological Society of America, 71, 46-48.

McLean, D.L. & Kinsey, M.G. (1984) The precibarial valve and its role in the feeding behavior of the pea aphid, Acyrthosiphon pisum. Bulletin of the Entomological Society of America, 30, 26-31.

Mittler, T.E. (1957) Studies on the feeding and nutrition of Tuberolachnus salignus (Gmelin) (Homoptera, Aphididae) I. The uptake of phloem sap. Journal of Experimental Biology, 34, 334-341.

Mittler, T.E. & Dadd, R.H. (1963) Studies on the artificial feeding of the aphid Myzus perslcae (Sulzer) – I. Relative uptake of water and sucrose solutions. Journal of Insect Physiology, 9, 623-645.

Sperry, J.S., Saliendra, N.Z., Pockman, W.T.,  Cochard, H., Cruiziat, P., Davis, S.D., Ewers, F.W. & Tyree, M.T. (1996) New evidence for large negative xylem pressures and their measurement by the pressure chamber method. Plant, Cell & Environment, 19, 427-436.

Rogers, S. & Peel, A.J. (1975) Some evidence for the existence of turgor pressure gradients in the sieve tubes of willow Planta (Berl.) 126, 259-267.   

Spiller, N.J., Koenders, L. & Tjallingii, W.F. (1990) Xylem ingestion by aphid – a strategy for maintaining water balance.  Entomologia experimentalis et applicata, 55, 101-104.

Wright, J.P. & Fisher, D.P. (1980) Direct measurement of sieve tube turgor pressure using severed aphid stylets. Plant Physiology, 65, 1133-1135.

 

*Phloem pressure is most often calculated by letting large aphids insert their stylets into their host plant and then cutting off the aphid’s head leaving the stylets inserted in the plant and allows the flow rate to be measured directly L

Not all aphids grow up to be aphids – the enemy within

It has been said that if aphids had their own way and unlimited resources the world as we know it would be 149 km deep in the cute little beasts (Harrington, 1994 ). Last year I wrote about how predators that feed on aphids, although useful, don’t really cut the mustard when it comes to keeping them in check and suggested that their host plants played a major role in keeping aphids from taking over the World.  While they do play an important part in keeping aphid populations under control, and are aided and abetted by aphid specific predators, there are, however, some much more efficient aphid-specific natural enemies out there.  They may be less conspicuous than the brightly coloured ladybirds that we often see munching their way through aphid colonies; public perception of their name may make people wince, but these beautiful and graceful creatures make sure that our appetite for salads and exotic vegetables out of season is satisfied safely and efficiently.  Their life cycles rival that of their prey, or should that be hosts, and entomologists fondly imagine that the film Alien was inspired by them 😊

I am, of course, talking about parasitic wasps, or parasitoids as they are more commonly known.  They are called parasitoids because unlike true parasites which generally speaking keep their hosts alive, insect victims of these wasps will, if successfully parasitized, die well before their non-parasitized relatives. In case you were wondering, the term parasitoid was coined by the Finnish Hemipterist, Odo Reuter (1913).  Aphids are not the only insects that are attacked by parasitoid wasps. The action of insect parasites has been known about for over two hundred years.  Erasmus Darwin, grandfather of the more famous Charles, noted that Ichneumonid wasps parasitised cabbage white butterfly caterpillars and so should be encouraged by gardeners (Darwin, 1800).  This is not the only early mention of parasitic insects in this context; Wheeler (1928), points out that back in the 1850s, two Italian entomologists, Camillo Rondani and Vittore Ghiliana also suggested the use of parasitic insects as biological control agents.  Aphid pests of glasshouse crops originally controlled mainly by predators (van Lenteren & Woets, 1988) are now routinely controlled by the application of commercially produced Braconid and Chalcid wasps (Boivin et al., 2012; van Lenteren, 2012).

Three commonly used aphid parasitoid biological control agents in action. Images from http://biologicalservices.com.au/products/aphelinus-2.html and https://www6.inra.fr/encyclopedie-pucerons/Especes/Parasitoides/Braconidae-Aphidiinae/Praon-volucre

When people think of Hymenoptera, they tend to think of bees, Vespid wasps and ants as being the most important and abundant.  They are very much mistaken.  The Parastica, or parasitoid wasps, are, by a huge margin, the most speciose and abundant section of

Parasitoids clearly dominate the Hymenopteran fauna of the British Isles (Many thanks to Natalie Dale-Skey of the NHM for permission to use this).

the Hymenoptera both in the UK and elsewhere

In the tropics the parasitoids are even more dominant. Data from Gaston et al., (1996).

Once parasitized, the egg(s), unless they are encapsulated by the aphid ‘immune’ system, hatch and begin to feed on the internal tissues of their, presumably, unsuspecting aphid host.  The parasitoid larvae avoid feeding on vital parts of the aphid, so that it can continue to grow and develop and provide food for the parasitoid, until the parasitoid is ready to pupate. Once the parasitoid is ready to pupate it delivers the coup de grace putting the aphid out of its misery and allowing the formation of the ‘mummy’ in

The three most common types of aphid mummies.  Images from http://resources.rothamsted.ac.uk/science-stories/aphids-mummies-and-cadavers,  http://biologicalservices.com.au/products/aphelinus-2.html and https://farm1.static.flickr.com/327/18532751584_becc0e56e9_b.jpg respectively.

which the parasitoid completes its development before sawing its way out to emerge as a winged adult ready to seek out new hosts, leaving a characteristic neat circular hole in mummy case. In case you were wondering why the mummy of Praon volucre looks like it is sitting on a plate, this because, unlike the other aphid parasitoids, the final instar cuts its way out of the bottom of the aphid and spins its cocoon externally underneath the remnants of the aphid, hence the ‘plate’ (Beirne, 1942).

And out she comes; emerging parasitoid – http://resources.rothamsted.ac.uk/science-stories/aphids-mummies-and-cadavers

 

Lysiphelbus testaceipes  Photo by J.K.Clark, University of California Statewide IPM Project

Once an aphid, now a hollow mummy; note the neat emergence holes.  Aphid parasitoids are very much tidier than the parasitic lifeform in the classic film Alien 🙂

Another aspect of their life style that makes parasitoids a breed apart from true parasites, is that as well as using aphids as egg laying sites for their larvae, the adults like to snack on them every now and then to help mature more eggs and to keep up their energy levels; sometimes quaintly described as predatism (Flanders, 1953).  Although the parasitoids can make feeding attacks at any time, they appear to feed first and then start laying their eggs (e.g. Collins et al., 1981).

Parasitoids are widely used as biological control agents in glasshouses and other protected environments as they are generally regarded as being more effective than predators (Debach & Rosen, 1991), although there is some support that generalist predators can play a significant part in biological control in the wider environment (Symondson et al., 2002; Gontijo et al., 2015).  That said, aphid parasitoids seem to be fairly host specific in that commercial companies offer specific parasitoid mixtures to control different aphid pest species e.g.  https://www.koppert.com/pests/aphids/product-against/aphipar/ [Note this is NOT an endorsement]. In fact it has been suggested that the relationship between aphids and their parasitoids can be used to clarify aphid taxonomic relationships (Mackauer, 1965). On the other hand, there are very few examples of monophagous aphid parasitoids, most being described as oligophagous (Stary & Rejmanek, 1981).   So given that there is a fair bit of evidence that the parasitoids attacking aphids do show some discrimination in their choice of hosts, how do they find them?

Parasitoids in general were originally thought to be “possessed of an unerring instinct that guided them in their search for hosts” but Cushman (1926) rebutted this idea pointing out that actually the parasitoids first home in on the habitat or food plant that their host lives in and then search for their host (Laing, 1937).   The parasitoids referred to by Cushman and Laing, are however, not parasitoids of aphids, attacking lepidopteran leaf miners and carrion feeding flies respectively, so you might perhaps think that aphid parasitoids could have a different strategy. Although habitat selection by parasitoids of lepidopteran larvae (Thorpe & Caudle, 1938) and sawfly larvae (Monteith, 1955), using olfactory cues of their host’s food plant was confirmed readily easily and early on, the situation with aphids was less clear cut. Manfred Mackauer for example, suggested that aphid parasitoids might be using visual cues, such as leaf deformities or damage to find their aphids hosts (Mackauer, 1965).  The breakthrough came when three cabbage loving entomologists from the USA used an olfactometer to first show that the Braconid parasitoid Diaeretiella rapae, responded positively to the odour of collards (what we in the UK call spring greens) and second to show a very strong preference for them to lay their eggs in the aphid Myzus persicae when it was feeding on crucifers rather than other host plants.  They attributed this to the presence of mustard oil, the chemical that gives cabbages their distinctive taste and suggested that once the aphid host plant was found then the parasitoids used visual cues to find their aphid victims (Read et al., 1970).  Six years later it was firmly established that parasitoids in general used olfactory cues both to locate the habitat of their host (long-range) and then a short-range to find and confirm the identity (contact chemicals) their insect hosts (Vinson, 1976).

It was thought that the aphid parasitoids were chemically ‘conditioned’ during their larval life within the aphid feeding on a host plant and that this influenced their adult host preferences (e.g. Sheehan & Shelton, 1989; Wickremasinghe & Van Emden, 1992).  These, and other similar results, seemed to support the Hopkins host selection principle (Hopkins, 1917) which states that adult preferences are learnt as larvae.  A very neat experiment by van Emden et al., (1996) proved this hypothesis wrong. They transferred aphid mummies from the plant on which they had been parasitized on to another host plant and this changed the preference of the emerging adult, seeming to suggest that this was how aphid parasitoids developed their host preferences.  Now comes the neat, and very tricky part; if however, the parasitoid pupae were removed (very carefully) from the mummy case and reared to adulthood in the absence of a host plant or mummy and kept in a glass tube, the emerging adults showed no preference for particular host plants, clearly showing that adult preferences were  not determined during larval development but ‘conditioned’ by exposure to the external skin of the aphid mummy on emergence (van Emden et al., 1996).  Using aphids reared on an artificial diet (Douloumpaka & van Emden, 2003) showed that the it was very likely that the mother parasitoid leaves a chemical cue in or around the egg(s) she lays and that this is later incorporated into the silk of the parasitoid pupa, thus inducing the host preference seen as an adult.

An additional twist to the story is that male and female parasitoids differ in their responses to odours.  Both sexes of Aphidius uzbekistanicus and A. ervi, parasitoids of cereal aphids in the UK, respond to plant odours, but only females respond to aphids (Powell & Zhi-Li, 1983).  Males of both species are, however, attracted to the odours of their respective females, suggesting the existence of a sex pheromone. The existence of a sex pheromone in aphid parasitoids had been suggested a few years earlier when it was shown that male D. rapae attempted to copulate with filter paper that had had female abdomens crushed on them (Askari & Alisha, 1979).  The existence of sex pheromones in aphid parasitoids has now been shown in several species (e.g. Decker et al., 1993; McNeil & Broduer, 1995).  Strangely, female parasitoids also respond to sex pheromones, but in their case, the sex pheromones of aphids.  It turns out that they ‘parasitise’ aphids in more than one way, they home in on their prey using the aphid sex pheromone and this enables them to find a suitable overwintering host (Hardie et al., 1991).  At other times of the year they also use other aphid indicators; several studies have shown that parasitoids use the presence of aphid honeydew to help them find their hosts (Budenberg, 1990; Bouchard & Cloutier, 1984; Gardner & Dixon, 1985).

Predators of aphids such as ladybirds use chemical markers to warn other ladybirds that they have laid eggs near aphid colonies, thus reducing the chances of cannibalism and competition (e.g. Oliver et al., 2006). Given that the eggs of aphid parasitoids are laid internally, they are in effect invisible, it would make sense if the parasitoids ‘marked’ their hosts in some way to avoid other parasitoids laying their eggs in an already parasitized aphid, superparasitism.  Sure enough, there is some evidence that some adult parasitoids can recognise aphids that already have larval parasitoids developing inside them although they don’t seem to be able to consistently recognise already parasitized aphids until some hours afterward (e.g. Cloutier et al., 1984).  In some cases, it seems that it is the aphid herself that prevents superparasitism by reacting more aggressively towards parasitoids after being attacked once (Gardner & Dixon, 1984) and also by the presence of dried siphuncular secretions on the aphid’s skin (Outreman et al., 2001).  The waxy secretion had an effect for up to a day or so after which the internal changes caused by the developing parasitoid larvae were enough to deter further oviposition attempts.

It is a good thing for the poor aphids that they have such a high reproductive rate, or they would truly be in dire straits.  On the other hand, as exemplified by the words of Jonathan Swift (1733),

“So naturalists observe, a flea
Has smaller fleas that on him prey;
And these have smaller still to bite ’em,
And so proceed ad infinitum”

there are parasites of parasitoids, the hyperparasites, that help keep the numbers of parasitoids under control, and thus, indirectly, help aphids remain relatively abundant.

 

References

Askari, A. & Alisha, A. (1979) Courtship behavior and evidence for a sex pheromone in Diaeretiella rapae (Hymenoptera: Braconidae), the cabbage aphid primary parasitoid. Annals of the Entomological Society of America, 72, 79-750.

Beirne, B.P. (1942) Observations on the life-history of Praon volucre Haliday (Hym.: Braconidae), a parasite of the mealy plum aphis (Hyalopterus arundinis Fab.). Proceedings of the Royal Entomological Society of London, Series A, General Entomology, 17, 42-47.

Boivin, G., Hance, T. & Brodeur, J. (2012) Aphid parasitoids in biological control.  Canadian Journal of Plant Science, 92, 1-12.

Bouchard, Y. & Cloutier, C. (1984) Honeydew as a source of host-searching kairomones for the aphid parasitoid, Aphidius nigripes (Hymenoptera: Aphidiidae).  Canadian Journal of Zoology, 62, 1513-1520.

Budenberg, W.J. (1990) Honeydew as a contact kairomone for aphid parasitoids.  Entomologia experimentalis et applicata, 55, 139-148.

Cloutier, C., Dohse, L.A. & Bauduin, F. (1984) Host discrimination in the aphid parasitoid Aphidius nigripes. Canadian Journal of Zoology, 62, 1367-1372.

Collins, M.D., Ward, S.A., & Dixon, A.F.G. (1981) Handling time and the functional response of Aphelinus thomsoni, a predator and parasite of the. Journal of Animal Ecology, 50, 479-487.

Cushman, R.A. (1926) Location of individual hosts versus systematic relation of hots species as a determining factor in parasitic attack. Proceedings of the Entomological Society of Washington, 28, 5-6.

Darwin, E. (1800) Phytologia: or The Philosophy of Agriculture and Gardening. P. Byrne, Grafton Street, London.

Debach, P. & Rosen, D. (1991) Biological Control by Natural Enemies, Cambridge University Press, New York.

Decker, U.M., Powell, W. & Clark, S.J. (1993) Sex pheromone in the cereal aphid parasitoids Praon volucre and Aphidius rhopalosiphi.  Entomologia experimentalis et applicata, 69, 33-39.

Douloumpaka, S. & van Emden, H.F. (2003) A maternal influence on the conditioning to plant cues of Aphidius colemani Viereck, parasitizing the aphid Mysuze persicae Sulzer.  Physiological Entomology, 28, 108-113.

Flanders, S.E. (1953) Predation by the adult Hymenopteran parasite and its role in biological control. Journal of Economic Entomology, 46, 541-544.

Gardner, S.M. & Dixon, A.F.G. (1984) Limitation of superparasitism by Aphidius rhopalosiphi: a consequence of aphid defensive behaviour. Ecological Entomology, 9, 149-155.

Gardner, S.M & Dixon, A.F.G. (1985) Plant structure and foraging success of Aphidius rhopalosiphi (Hymenoptera: Aphidiidae).  Ecological Entomology, 10, 171-179.

Gaston, K.J., Gauld, I.D. & Hanson, P. (1996) The size and composition of the hymenopteran fauna of Costa Rica.  Journal of Biogeography, 23, 105-113.

Griffiths, D.C. (1960) The behaviour and specificity of Monoctonus paldum Marshall (Hym., Braconidae), a parasite of Nasonovia ribis-nigbi (Mosley) on lettuce. Bulletin of Entomological Research, 51, 303-319.

Hardie, J., Nottingham, S.F., Powell, W. & Wadhams, L.J. (1991) Synthetic aphid sex pheromone lures female parasitoids.  Entomologia experimentalis et applciata, 61, 97-99.

Harrington, R. (1994) Aphid layer. Antenna, 18, 50-51.

Hopkins, A.D. (1917) Contribution to discussion.  Journal of Economic Entomology, 10, 92-93.

Holler, C. (1991) Evidence for the existence of a species closely related to the cereal aphid parasitoid Aphidius rhopalosiphi De Stefani-Perez based on host ranges, morphological characters, isoelectric focusing banding patterns, cross-breeding experiments and sex pheromone specificities (Hymenoptera, Braconidae, Aphidiinae. Systematic Entomology, 16, 15-28.

http://www.biologicalcontrol.info/aphid-primary-and-hyperparasitoids.html

Laing, J. (1937) Host-finding byinsect parasites 1. Observations on the finding of hosts by Alysia manducator, Mormoniella vitripennis and Trichogramma evanescens.  Journal of Animal Ecology, 6, 298-317.

Mackauer, M. (1965) Parasitological data as an aid in aphid classification. Canadian Entomologist, 97, 1016-1024.

McNeil, J.N. & Brodeur, J. (1995) Pheromone-mediated mating in the aphid parasitoid, Aphidius nigripes.  Journal of Chemical Ecology, 21, 959-972.

Monteith, L.G. (1955) Host preferences of Drino bohemica Mesn. (Diptera; Tachnidae) with particular reference to olfactory responses.  Canadian Entomologist, 87, 509-530.

Oliver, T.H., Timms, J.E.L., Taylor, A. & Leather, S.R. (2006) Oviposition responses to patch quality in the larch ladybird Aphidecta obliterata (Coleoptera: Coccinellidae): effects of aphid density, and con- and heterospecific tracks. Bulletin of Entomological Research, 96, 25-34.

Outreman, Y., Le Ralec, A., Plantegenest, M., Chaubet, B, & Pierre, J.S. (2001) Superparasitism limitation in an aphid parasitoid: cornicle secretion avoidance and host discrimination ability. Journal of Insect Physiology, 47, 339-348.

Powell, W. & Zhi-Li, Z. (1983) The reactions of two cereal aphid parasitoids, Aphidius uzbekistanicus and A. ervi to host aphids and their food-plants.  Physiological Entomology, 8, 439-443.

Reuter, O.M. (1913). Lebensgewohnheiten und Instinkte der Insekten (Berlin: Friendlander).

Stary, P. & Rejmanek, M. (1981) Number of parasitoids per host in different systematic groups of aphids: The implications for introduction strategy in biological control (Homoptera: Aphidoidea; Hymenoptera: Aphidiidae). Entomologica Scandinavica, Suppl. 15, 341-351.

Riley, W.A. (1931) Erasmus Darwin and the biologic* control of insects. Science, 73, 475-476.

Sheehan, W. & Shelton, A.M. (1989) The role of experience in plant foraging by the aphid parasitoid Diaeretiella rapae (Hymenoptera: Aphidiidae).  Journal of Insect Behavior, 2, 743-759.

Symondson, W.O.C., Sunderland, K.D., & Greenstone, M.H. (2002) Can generalist predators be effective bicontrol agents? Annual Review of Entomology, 47, 561-594.

Thompson, W.R. (1930) The principles of biological control. Annals of Applied Biology, 17, 306-338.

Thorpe, W.H. & Caudle, H.B. (1938) A study of the olfactory responses of insect parasites to the food plant of their host.  Parasitology, 30, 523-528.

Van Emden, H.F., Spongal, B., Wagner, E., Baker, T., Ganguly, S. & Douloumpaka, S. (1996) Hopkins’ ‘host selection principle’, another nail in its coffin.  Physiological Entomology, 21, 325-328.

Van Lenteren, J.C. (2012) The state of commercial augmentative biological control: plenty of natural enemies, but a frustrating lack of uptake. BioControl, 57, 1-20.

Van Lenteren, J.C. & Woets, J. (1988) Biological and integrated control in greenhouses.  Annual Review of Entomology, 33, 239-269.

Vinson, S.B. (1976) Host selection by insect parasitoids.  Annual Review of Entomology, 21, 109-133.

Wheeler, W.M. (1922). Social life among the insects: Lecture II. Wasps solitary and social. Scientific Monthly, 15, 68-88.

Wheeler, W.M. (1928) Foibles of Insects and Men.  Alfred Knopf, New York

Wickremasinghe, M.G.V. & Van Emden, H.F. (1992) Reactions of adult female parasitoids, particularly Aphidius rhopalosiphi, to volatile chemical cues from the host plants of their aphid prey. Physiological Entomology, 17, 207-304.

*This is how he spelt it; not a mistake on my part J

Not all aphids get eaten – “bottom-up” wins this time

In the lecture that I introduce aphids to our entomology MSc students I show them two quotes that illustrate the prodigious reproductive potential of these fantastic animals.

“In a season the potential descendants of one female aphid contain more substance than 500 million stout men “– Thomas Henry Huxley (1858) and “In a year aphids could form a layer 149 km deep over the surface of the earth.  Thank God for limited resources and natural enemies” – Richard Harrington (1994).

I was a little discomfited whilst researching this article to find that both Huxley and I had been short-changed, although the original quote does hint at the mortality factors that an aphid clone faces during its life.

The original words and the morphed ‘quote’

 

Both these quotes acknowledge the contribution that both bottom-up and top-down factors have on aphid populations.  For those not familiar with the ecological jargon, ecologists have at times over the last 40 years or so, got quite territorial* about whether herbivorous insect populations are regulated by top-down e.g. predators or bottom-up e.g. host plant quality, factors (e.g. Hunter & Price, 1992).  Who is in charge of an aphid clone’s destiny, natural enemies or the food plant?

Aphids are the favourite food of several insect species; ladybirds (but not all species), lacewing larvae, hoverfly larvae, and also the larvae of some Cecidomyiid flies (Aphidoletes spp.), and Chamaemyiid flies (e.g. Leucopis glyphinivora).  They are also attacked by other Hemipteran species, such as Anthocoris nemorum.   Those insects that make a living almost solely from aphids, are termed aphidophagous and every three years you can, if you feel like it, attend an international conference devoted to the subject 🙂

As well as these specialist predators, aphids are also preyed upon by more generalist predators, such as carabid and staphylinid beetles, harvestmen and spiders. Aphids also provide a nutritious snack for birds and bats.  Faced with all these hungry and voracious predators you might wonder why it is that aphids ever get numerous enough to become pests.  There are two answers, their fantastic reproductive rates and second, aphids, despite appearing soft and squishy, do have anti-predator defence mechanisms.  These range from kicking predators in the face, dropping off the plant, gumming up the jaws of predators by smearing them with wax from their siphunculi, and even jumping out of the way of the predator (Dixon, 1958).  On top of all that,  many are extremely unpalatable and even poisonous.

Some population modelling work from the 1970s explains why aphids can often become pests, as well as introducing us to the concept of population dynamics geography; the endemic and epidemic ridges, and my favourite, the natural enemy ravine (Southwood & Comins, 1976).

The geography of population dynamics from Southwood & Comins (1976)

 

They suggested that if enough predators are already present in the habitat or arrive shortly after the aphids, then the aphid population either goes extinct or only reaches the “endemic ridge”.  The phenomenal rate at which aphids can reproduce under favourable conditions, usually gets them past the “natural enemy ravine” and up into “epidemic ridge” with only a slight slowdown in population growth.   Evidence for the “natural enemy ravine” is not very convincing and I feel that the suggestion that the dip in population growth at the start of the season is due to intermittent immigration by winged aphids and not the action of polyphagous predators (Carter & Dixon, 1981) is pretty convincing.   That said, later modelling work suggested that the subsequent growth of aphid populations could be slowed down by the action of natural enemies Carter et al., 1982).

Aphids, despite their ability to produce baby aphids extremely quickly, are not equally abundant all year round. Those of us who want to collect aphids know that the best time of year is early in the season, spring and early summer.  This is the time when the plant sap is flowing quickly and is rich in nutrients, especially nitrogen, which aphids need in large quantities.    A characteristic of aphid populations is the way they suddenly disappear during July, a phenomenon known as the “mid-summer or mid-season crash”.  This is not just a phenomenon confined to aphids living on ephemeral herbaceous hosts, it happens to tree-dwelling aphids too e.g. the sycamore aphid, Drepanoisphum platanoidis.  At Silwood Park, where I monitored sycamore aphid populations on fifty-two trees for twenty years**, I saw the same pattern of a rapid build-up followed by an equally rapid collapse every year.  The pattern was the same in both high population and low population years and happened at pretty much the same time every year.  Herbivorous insects are, as you might expect, strongly

High and low population years of sycamore aphid, Drepanosiphum platanoidis at Silwood Park

affected by the quality of their host plant, the availability of nitrogen in the leaves being of most importance (Awmack & Leather, 2002).  Aphids are no exception, and their whole-life cycle is adapted to the ever-changing, but predictable availability of soluble nitrogen and water in their host plants (Dixon, 1977).  Plants become less suitable for aphids as their tissues mature and they lock their nitrogen away in the leaves and other structures, rather than transporting it around in the phloem as they do in spring and autumn (Dixon, 1976).

Aphids respond in two ways to a decline in the nutritional quality of their host plant, they reduce the number of offspring they produce (e.g. Watt, 1979) and those offspring they produce are winged (e.g. Parry, 1977), or if already winged, more likely to take flight and seek new better quality host plants (e.g. Dixon, 1969; Jarosik & Dixon, 1999).  In some aphids there is also an increase in intrinsic mortality (e.g. Kift et al., 1998).

The mid-season crash is not confined to abundant and common aphids, rare aphids show exactly the same changes in their populations, and this is similarly attributed to changes in the nutritional quality of the aphid host plant leading to increased dispersal (e.g. Kean, 2002).

Population crash of the rare aphid Paradoxaphis plagianthi in New Zealand (data from Kean, 2002).

Although some authors, notably Alison Karley and colleagues have suggested that it is the action of natural enemies and not host nutrition that drives the mid-season crash (Karley et al., 2003, 2004), the overwhelming evidence points to the production of winged (alate) morphs and their dispersal, being the major factor in causing the mid-season crash as the graphs below illustrate.

Cereal aphids on wheat showing increased alate production coinciding and subsequent population crash on cereal crops. Data from Wratten, 1975).

Green spruce aphid, Elatobium abietinum on Norway spruce at Silwood Park, showing the population crash and associated increase in the number of winged aphids. Data from Leather & Owuor (1996).

Green spruce aphid in Ireland, population crash associated with marked decline in fecundity and production of winged forms. Data from Day (1984)

Data presented by Way & Banks (1968) might lend some support to the idea that natural enemies cause the mid-season crash.  A close examination of the data however, which might at first glance suggest that keeping natural enemies away, allows aphid populations to prosper, reveals that the process of excluding natural enemies also prevents the dispersal of the winged aphids, which have no choice but to stay on the host plant and reproduce there.

Aphis fabae populations on Spindle bushes from Way & Banks (1968). Top line shows the population kept free of predators until August 2^nd, bottom line, exposed to predators.

Moreover, as the authors themselves state “the rise to peak density in each year, coincided with an enormous increase in the proportion of individuals destined to become alatae” (Way & Banks, 1968).   I do not dispute that natural enemies have an effect on aphid populations, but in my opinion, the evidence does not support the hypothesis that they are the driving force behind the mid-season crash.  Rather, the major factor is the reduction in host quality, caused by a decline in the nutritional status of the plant and overcrowding of the aphids, leading to reduced fecundity and an increase in winged dispersers.

I don’t deny that the natural enemies do a very good mopping-up job of those aphids that are left behind, but they are not the force majeure by any stretch of the imagination. Most aphids do not get eaten 🙂

 

References

Awmack, C.S. & Leather, S.R. (2002) Host plant quality and fecundity in herbivorous insects. Annual Review of Entomology, 47, 817-844.

Carter, N. & Dixon, A.F.G. (1981) The natural enemy ravine in cereal aphid population dynamics: a consequence of predator activity or aphid biology? Journal of Animal Ecology, 50, 605-611.

Carter, N., Gardner, S.M., Fraser, A.M., & Adams, T.H.L. (1982) The role of natural enemies in cereal aphid population dynamics. Annals of Applied Biology, 101, 190-195.

Day, K.R. (1984) The growth and decline of a population of the spruce aphid Elatobium abietinum during a three  study, and the changing pattern of fecundity, recruitment and alary polymorphism in a Northern Ireland Forest. Oecologia, 64, 118-124.

Dixon, A.F.G. (1958) The escape responses shown by certain aphids to the presence of the coccinellid Adalia decempunctata (L.). Transactions of the Royal Entomological Society London, 110, 319-334.

Dixon, A.F.G. (1969) Population dynamics of the sycamore aphid Drepanosiphum platanoides (Schr) (Hemiptera: Aphididae); migratory and trivial flight activity. Journal of Animal Ecology, 38, 585-606.

Dixon, A.F.G. (1976) Factors determining the distribution of sycamore aphids on sycamore leaves during summer. Ecological Entomology, 1, 275-278.

Dixon, A.F.G. (1977) Aphid Ecology: Life cycles, polymorphism, and population regulation. Annual Review of Ecology & Systematics, 8, 329-353.

Harrington, R. (1994) Aphid layer. Antenna, 18, 50-51.

Hunter, M.D. & Price, P.W. (1992) Playing chutes and ladders – heterogeneity and the relative roles of bottom-up and top-down forces in natural communities. Ecology, 73, 724-732.

Huxley, T.H. (1858) On the agmaic reproduction and morphology of Aphis – Part I. Transactions of the Linnean Society London, 22, 193-219.

Jarosik, V. & Dixon, A.F.G. (1999) Population dynamics of a tree-dwelling aphid: regulation and density-independent processes. Journal of Animal Ecology, 68, 726-732.

Karley, A.J., Parker, W.E., Pitchford, J.W., & Douglas, A.E. (2004) The mid-season crash in aphid populations: why and how does it occur? Ecological Entomology, 29, 383-388.

Karley, A.J., Pitchford, J.W., Douglas, A.E., Parker, W.E., & Howard, J.J. (2003) The causes and processes of the mid-summer population crash of the potato aphids Macrosiphum euphorbiae and Myzus persicae (Hemiptera: Aphididae). Bulletin of Entomological Research, 93, 425-437.

Kean, J.M. (2002) Population patterns of Paradoxaphis plagianthi, a rare New Zealand aphid. New Zealand Journal of Ecology, 26, 171-176.

Kift, N.B., Dewar, A.M. & Dixon, A.F.G. (1998) Onset of a decline in the quality of sugar beet as a host for the aphid Myzus persicae.  Entomologia experimentalis et applicata, 88, 155-161.

Leather, S.R. & Owuor, A. (1996) The influence of natural enemies and migration on spring populations of the green spruce aphid, Elatobium abietinum Walker (Hom., Aphididae). Journal of Applied Entomology, 120, 529-536.

Parry, W.H. (1977) The effects of nutrition and density on the production of alate Elatobium abietinum on Sitka spruce. Oecologia, 30, 637-675.

Southwood, T.R.E. & Comins, H.N. (1976) A synoptic population model.  Journal of Animal Ecology, 45, 949-965.

Watt, A.D. (1979) The effect of cereal growth stages on the reproductive activity of Sitobion avenae and Metopolphium dirhodum. Annals of Applied Biology, 91, 147-157.

Way, M.J. & Banks, C.J. (1968) Population studies on the active stages of the black bean aphid, Aphis fabae Scop., on its winter host Euonymus europaeus L. Annals of Applied Biology, 62, 177-197.

Wratten, S.D. (1975) The nature of the effects of the aphids Sitobion avenae and Metopolophium dirhodum on the growth of wheat. Annals of Applied Biology, 79, 27-34.

 

Post script

For those interested this is how Huxley arrived at his number of potential descendants, and here I quote from his paper,  “In his Lectures, Prof. Owen adopts the calculations taken from Morren (as acknowledged by him) from Tougard that a single impregnated ovum  of Aphis may give rise, without fecundation, to a quintillion of Aphides.” I have not, so far, been able to track down Tougard.

Morren, C.F.A. (1836) sur le Puceron du Pecher, Annales des Sciences Naturelle series 2. vi.

You may not know what a grain is, so to help you visualise it, 7000 grains equals a pound so 2 000 000 grains gives you 286 pounds, or 20 stone or approximately 130 Kg depending on where you come from J

 

*and generated some magnificent paper titles and quite acrimonious responses J Hassell, M.P., Crawley, M.J., Godfray, H.C.J., & Lawton, J.H. (1998) Top-down versus bottom-up and the Ruritanian bean bug. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA, 95, 10661-10664.

**A true labour of love as I also counted maple aphids, orange ladybirds, winter moth larvae and any of their predators and parasites that I came across J

 

Not all aphid galls are the same

A galling experience – what on earth is an aphid-induced phytotoxemia?

Scientists, actually let me correct that, all members of specialist groups, be they plumbers or astrophysicists, love their jargon.  Insect-induced phytotoxemias is a great example. What entomologists and plant physiologists mean by this term is plant damage caused by an insect.  The visible damage that insects can cause to plants ranges from discolouration, lesions, and malformation of stems and leaves. As the title of this post suggests I am going to discuss galls.  Many insects produce galls, some of which can be spectacular such as Robin’s pin cushion gall caused by the wasp, Diplolepis rosae, but being a staunch aphidologist I am going to concentrate on various leaf deformities caused by aphids.

Robin’s pin cushion gall, caused by Diplolepis rosae.

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/93/Diplolepis-rosae.jpg

Aphids are true bugs, they are characterised by the possession of piercing and sucking mouthparts, the stylets, think of a hypodermic needle, being the piercing part of the mouthparts.

Aphid mouthparts, showing the passage of the stylets to the phloem (Dixon, 1973).

It was originally thought that the various leaf deformities resulting from aphid feeding was a direct result of the mechanical damage caused by the stylet entering the leaf and rupturing cell walls or possibly by the transmission of a disease. A series of elegant experiments by Kenneth Smith in the 1920s showed however, that insect salivary gland extracts were needed to cause the damage (Smith, 1920, 1926).  Puncturing leaves with needles did not produce the same symptoms.  The leaf rolls, leaf curls and pseudo-galls caused by aphids vary between species even when the aphids are closely related or their host plants are.  As an example of the latter, the bird cherry-oat aphid, Rhopalosiphum padi, causes what I would describe as a leaf roll, i.e. the leaves curl in from the edges towards the mid-rib, to make something that resembles a sausage.

Leaf roll pseudo-galls on bird cherry, Prunus padus, caused by the bird cherry oat aphid, Rhopalosiphum padi.

On the other hand, the cherry blackfly, Myzus cerasi, that has Prunus avium as its primary host, causes what I describe as leaf curls (think ringlets and curls in human hair terms), in that the leaf rolls up from the tip down towards the stalk (petiole).

Leaf curl on Prunus avium caused by the Chery black fly, Myzus cerasi

Similarly, there are two closely related aphid species, Dysaphis devecta and D. plantaginea, both feed on apple leaves, but D. devecta prefers to feed on the smaller veins while D. plantaginea prefers to feed on the mid-rib. The former causes a leaf-roll, the latter a leaf curl.

Dysaphis galls http://influentialpoints.com/Gallery/Dysaphis_devecta_species_group_rosy_leaf-curling_apple_aphids.htm

As well as leaf rolls and leaf curls, some aphids are able to induce leaf folds.  The poplar-buttercup gall aphid, Thecabius affinis being a good example.

Leaf fold on poplar caused by Thecabius affinis Poplar-buttercup gall aphid. Photo from the excellent Influential Points web site. http://influentialpoints.com/Gallery/Thecabius_affinis_Poplar-buttercup_gall_aphid.htm

You might think that it is the aphid feeding site that causes the characteristic roll, curl or fold, but if groups of D. devecta or D. plantaginea are caged on the stem of an apple seedling, young leaves several centimetres away will develop leaf rolls characteristic of each species suggesting that they are caused by specific substances in the saliva of each aphid (Forrest & Dixon, 1975).  Aphid saliva is known to contain a huge range of proteins from amino acids to digestive enzymes (Miles, 1999) so it is highly likely that different aphid species have evolved different suites of enzymes that enable them exploit their respective host plants more efficiently.  Entomologists who work on plant galls suspect that there is something in the saliva that makes the plant’s hormones trigger the gall formation, but they freely admit that they are still just guessing.  Leaf rolls and curls are pretty tame when you come to look at the galls some aphids can induce.  Aphids from the family Pemphigidae cause structural deformations that totally enclose them and their offspring.

Petiole galls caused by (left) Pemphigus spyrothecae (photo Graham Calow, http://warehouse1.indicia.org.uk/upload/med-p1771un6n510nt146ugosslt1hip5.jpg) and (right) Pemhigus bursarius gall (Photo Graham Calow http://www.naturespot.org.uk/species/pemphigus-bursarius)

Pemphigus populitransversus, the Cabbage root aphid or poplar petiole aphid (Photo Ryan Gott Ryan Gott‏ @Entemnein)

Not all enclosed galls are on petioles, the witch-hazel cone gall aphid (Hormaphis hamamelidis causes very distinctive galls on the leaves of its host plant.

Cone galls on witch hazel caused by Hormapahis hamamelidis http://www.inaturalist.org/photos/377819

So what is it with insect galls?  Are they of any use?  Peter Price and colleagues (Price et al., 1987) very succinctly summarised the four hypotheses that address the adaptive value of insect galls; a) No adaptive value (Bequaert, 1924), b) adaptive value for the plant (Mani, 1964), c) adaptive value for plant and herbivore (mutual benefit) (Cockerell, 1890) and d) adaptive value for the insect.  This last hypothesis is further subdivided into nutritional improvements, micro-environmental improvements and natural enemy protection (Price et al., 1987).

Becquaert’s non-adaptive hypothesis is and was easily and quickly dismissed (Price et al., 1987), so I will move swiftly on to the plant-protection hypothesis which Price et al., dismiss almost as swiftly.  In essence if galls are not associated with enhanced growth and survival of the galled plant then there is no protection offered.  In fact, galling insects have been used as biological control agents against weeds (e.g. Holloway & Huffaker, 1953; Gayton & Miller, 2012) which to put it mildly, does not suggest any benefits accruing from being galled.  That said, you could argue (weakly) and assuming that the plant is in control of producing the gall, that by confining the insect to a particular part of the plant it is “contained” and can be dealt with if it is causing too much damage by for example premature leaf abscission (Williams & Whitham, 1986).

The mutual benefit hypothesis is also easily dismissed as there is no evidence that galls improve the fitness of a plant as galling insects are parasites of the plant.  You might argue that fig wasps and figs mutually benefit each other, but in this case I think we are looking at special case pleading as the fig wasp are pollinators (Janzen, 1979).

So that takes us on to the adaptive value for insects hypothesis which makes a lot more sense as it is the insect (in this case the aphid), that has made the investment in what you might justifiably term, mutagenic saliva (Miles, 1999).

There is overwhelming evidence so support the nutrition hypothesis that galled leaves and galls are nutritionally superior to ungalled leaves (Llewellyn, 1982); e.g. acting as nitrogen sinks (Paclt & Hässler, 1967; Koyama et al., 2004), enhancing development and fecundity for succeeding generations of aphids (e.g. Leather & Dixon, 1981) and providing better nutrition for non-galling aphids and other insects (e.g. Forrest, 1971; Koyama et al., 2004; Diamond et al., 2008).   I also found a description of an aphid, Aphis commensalis, the waxy buckthorn aphid, which lives in the vacated galls of the psyllid Trichochermes walker, but whether this is for protection or nutritional reasons is not clear (Stroyan, 1952). 

The microenvironment hypothesis which suggests that the galls provide protection from extremes in temperature and humidity was hard to support with published data when Price et al. (1987) reviewed the topic. They mainly relied on personal observations that suggested that this might be true.  I found only two references in my search (Miller et al, 2009) that supported this hypothesis, albeit one of which is for gall wasps.  I have so far only been able to find one reference that suggest galls benefit aphids, in this case protecting them from very high temperatures (Martinez, 2009).

The natural enemy protection hypothesis has been tested almost as much as the nutrition hypothesis and in general terms seems to be a non-starter as gall forming insects seem to be especially attractive to parasitoids; see Price et al., (1987) for a host of references.  Aphids, however, may be a different case, free-living aphids have many parasitoid species attacking them, but those aphids that induce closed galls are singularly parasitoid free, at least in North America (Price et al., 1987). Although this may have been from lack of looking, as parasitoids have been identified from galls of the aphid Pemphigus matsumarai in Japan (Takada et al., 2010).  Closed galls are not always entirely closed as some need holes to allow honeydew to escape and migrants to leave (Stone & Schonrogge, 2003) which can act as entry points for natural enemies, but cleverly, the aphids have soldier aphids to guard against such insect invaders.

Sometimes the potential predator can be a vertebrate.  The aphid Slavum wertheimae forms closed galls on wild pistachio trees, and are, as with many other closed gall formers, not attacked by parasitoids (Inbar et al., 2004).  Wild pistachios are, however, attractive food sources to mammalian herbivores and gall aphids being confined to a leaf, unlike free living aphids could be inadvertently eaten. The galls however, contain higher levels of terpenes than surrounding leaves and fruits and emit high levels of volatiles that deter feeding by goats and other generalist herbivores thus protecting their inhabitants (Rostás et al., 2013). Not only that, but to make sure that any likely vertebrate herbivores avoid their gall homes, they make them brightly coloured (Inbar et al., 2010).   Aphids really are great at manipulating plants.

Cauliflower gall on wild pistachio, caused by Slavum wertheimae (Rostás et al., 2013).

Leaf rolls and curls on the other hand are more open structures, and in my experience, aphids that form leaf rolls or curls, are very vulnerable once a predator finds them crowded together in huge numbers.  Gall-dwelling aphids, including those that live in rolls and curls, tend, however, to be very waxy, and this may deter the less voracious predators.  I tend to support the nutritional benefit hypothesis in that with host alternating aphids, the enhanced nutrition enables rapid growth and development and is a way of building up numbers quickly, and hopefully the aphids are able to migrate to a new host, before the natural enemies find them.

Real life drama, Rhopalosiphum padi on Prunus padus at Harper Adams University May-June 2017.  In this instance the aphids won, and the plant was covered in hungry ladybird larvae eating mainly each other and the few aphids that had not managed to reach adulthood.

One thing that struck me while researching this article was that all the aphids producing galls, rolls or curls were host-alternating species. A fairly easily tested hypothesis for someone with the time to review the biology of about 5000 aphids, is that only host alternating aphids go in for galls.  This could be a retirement job J.

There are, depending on which estimate you agree with, somewhere between 8 000 000 to 30 000 000 insect species (Erwin, 1982; Stork, 1993; Mora et al., 2011), but even the highest estimate suggests that only 211 000 of these are galling species (Espirito-Santos & Fernandes, 2007).  And a final thought, if galls are so great why don’t all aphids and other phloem and xylem feeding insects go in for them?

References

Becquaert, J. (1924) Galls that secrete honeydew.  A contribution to the problem as to whether galls are altruistic adaptations.  Bulletin of the Brooklyn Entomological Society, 19, 101-124.

Cockerell, T.D.A. (1890) Galls. Nature, 41, 344.

Diamond, S.E., Blair, C.P. & Abrahamson, W.G. (2008) Testing the nutrition hypothesis for the adaptive nature of insect galls: does a non-adapted herbivore perform better in galls?  Ecological Entomology, 33, 385-393.

Dixon, A.F.G. (1973) Biology of Aphids, Edward Arnold, London

Erwin, T.L. (1982) Tropical forests: their richness in Coleoptera and other arthropod species. The Coleopterists Bulletin, 36, 74-75.

Espirito-Santos, M.M.  & Fernandes, G.W. (2007) How many species of gall-inducing insects are there on Earth, and where are they?  Annals of the Entomological Society of America, 100, 95-99.

Forrest, J.M.S. (1971) The growth of Aphis fabae as an indicator of the nutritional advantage of galling to the apple aphid Dysaphis devecta. Entomologia experimentalis et applicata, 14, 477-483.

Forrest, J.M.S. & Dixon, A.F.G. (1975) The induction of leaf-roll galls by the apple aphid Dysaphis devecta and D. plantaginea.  Annals of Applied Biology, 81, 281-288.

Gayton, D. & Miller, V. (2012) Impact of biological control on two knapweed species in British Columbia. Journal of Ecosystems & Management, 13, 1-14.

Holloway, J.K. & Huffaker, C.B. (1953) Establishment of a root borer and a gall fly for control of klamath weed.  Journal of Economic Entomology, 46, 65-67.

Inbar, M., Wink, M. & Wool, D. (2004) The evolution of host plant manipulation by insects: molecular and ecological evidence from gall-forming aphids on Pistacia.  Molecular Phylogenetics & Evolution, 32, 504-511.

Inbar, M., Izhaki, I., Koplovich, A., Lupo, I., Silanikove, N., Glasser, T., Gerchman, Y., Perevolotsky, A., & Lev-Yadun, S. (2010) Why do many galls have conspicuous colors?  A new hypothesis. Arthropod-Plant Interactions, 4, 1-6.

Janzen, D.H. (1979) How to be a fig. Annual Review of Ecology & Systematics, 10, 13-51.

Koyama, Y., Yao, I. & Akimoto, S.I. (2004) Aphid galls accumulate high concentrations of amino acids: a support for the nutrition hypothesis for gall formation.  Entomologia experimentalis et applicata, 113, 35-44.

Leather, S.R. & Dixon, A.F.G. (1981) Growth, survival and reproduction of the bird-cherry aphid, Rhopalosiphum padi, on it’s primary host. Annals of Applied Biology, 99, 115-118.

Llewellyn, M. (1982) The energy economy of fluid-feeding insects.  Pp 243-251, Proceedings of the 5^th International Symposium on Insect-Plant Relationships, Wageningen, Pudoc, Wageningen.

Mani, M.S. (1964) The Ecology of Plant Galls. W Junk, The Hague.

Martinez, J.J.I. (2009) Temperature protection in galls induced by the aphid Baizongia pistaciae (Hemiptera: Pemphigidae).  Entomologia Generalis, 32, 93-96.

Miles, P.W. (1999) Aphid saliva.  Biological Reviews, 74, 41-85.

Miller, D.G., Ivey, C.T. & Shedd, J.D. (2009) Support for the microenvironment hypothesis for adaptive value of gall induction in the California gall wasp, Andricus quercuscalifornicus. Entomologia experientalis et aplicata, 132, 126-133.

Mora, C., Tittensor, D.P., Adl, S., Simpson, A.G.B., & Worm, B. (2011) How many species are there on earth and in the ocean? PloS Biology, 9(8):, e1001127.doi:10.1371/journal.pbio.1001127.

Paclt, J. & Hässler, J. (1967) Concentrations of nitrogen in some plant galls. Phyton, 12, 173-176.

Price, P.W., Fernandes, G.W. & Waring, G.L. (1987) Adaptive nature of insect galls.  Environmental Entomology, 16, 15-24.

Rostás, M., Maag, D., Ikegami, M. & Inbar, M. (2013) Gall volatiles defend aphids against a browsing mammal.  BMC Evolutionary Biology, 13:193.

Smith, K.M. (1920) Investigations of the nature and cause of the damage to plant tissue resulting from the feeding of capsid bugs.  Annals of Applied Biology,7, 40-55.

Smith, K.M. (1926) A comparative study of the feeding methods of certain Hemiptera and of the resulting effects upon the plant tissue, with special reference to the potato plant.  Annals of Applied Biology, 13, 109-139.

Stone, G.N. & Schönrogge, K. (2003) The adaptive significance of insect gall morphology. Trends in Ecology & Evolution, 18, 512-522.

Stork, N.E. (1993) How many species are there? Biodiversity & Conservation, 2, 215-232.

Stroyan, H.L.G. (1952) Three new species of British aphid.  Proceedings of the Royal Entomological Society B, 21, 117-130.

Takada, H., Kamijo, K. & Torikura, H. (2010) An aphidiine parasitoid Monoctonia vesicarii (Hymenoptera: Braconidae) and three chalcidoid hyperparasitoids of Pemphigus matsumurai (Homoptera: Aphididae) forming leaf galls on Populus maximowiczii in Japan.  Entomological Science, 13, 205-215.

Williams, A.G. & Whitham, T.G. (1986) Premature leaf abscission: an induced plant defense against aphids. Ecology, 67, 1619-1627.