Genetic Modification of Host Acceptance by a Seed Beetle Callosobruchus maculatus (Coleoptera: Bruchidae)
Document Type
Article
Journal/Book Title/Conference
Annals of the Entomological Society of America
Volume
102
Publication Date
1-1-2009
First Page
181
Last Page
188
Abstract
Successful host shifts by herbivorous insects may require the modiÞcation of multiple larval and adult traits. The seed beetle Callosobruchus maculatus (F.) (Coleoptera: Bruchidae) rarely attacks lentil (Lens culinarisMedikus), which is distantly related to its typical hosts. In a previous study, larval survival in lentil seeds increased from 2 to 85% in fewer than 20 generations of laboratory selection. However, lentil is also a poor oviposition host; lifetime fecundity on lentil was initially less than a third of that on the ancestral host [mung bean, Vigna radiata (L.) R. Wilczek] and one fourth of females did not even recognize lentil as a potential host. This study examined the genetic lability of host acceptance. We performed both quasi-natural selection, in which replicate lines switched to lentil were compared with those remaining on mung bean, and artiÞcial selection, in which lines were established using females from the base population that exhibited especially low or high acceptance of lentil during a short-term assay. After only Þve to eight generations of quasi-natural selection, lifetime fecundity on lentil was 2 to 3 times higher in the lentil lines than in the mung bean lines. Lentil-line females also accepted the novel host sooner after adult emergence. Similarly, a single generation of artiÞcial selection was sufÞcient to increase oviposition on lentil in the acceptance line. Host acceptance was not genetically correlated with larval survival, which remained 2% in lines artiÞcially selected for either high or low acceptance of lentil seeds. Although modiÞcation of oviposition behavior in this study was not nearly as striking as the increase in larval survival reported previously, the C. maculatus population possessed enough standing genetic variation in both larval physiology and adult behavior to permit rapid adaptation to a very poor host.
Recommended Citation
Messina, F.J., J.C. Jones, M. Mendenhall & A. Muller. 2009. Genetic modification of host acceptance by a seed beetle Callosobruchus maculatus (Coleoptera: Bruchidae). Annals of the Entomological Society of America 102:181-188.
