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Modern Maize Hybrids Have Lost Volatile Bottom-Up and Top-Down Control of Dalbulus maidis, a Specialist Herbivore

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Abstract

Following damage by herbivores, many plants release volatiles that dissuade future conspecifics from feeding. In many crop plants however, induced volatiles mediating this kind of interactions among plants, herbivores and also their natural enemies have been altered through the process of domestication. The selection of crops for increased yield may have gone at a cost of defense, possibly including defense-related volatiles. Dalbulus maidis (Hemiptera: Cicadellidae), a specialist leafhopper that only feeds on Zea spp., is a vector of Corn Stunt Spiroplasma, a serious maize disease. Here, we compared the volatiles released following D. maidis attack by a maize landrace and two maize hybrids of temperate and tropical background. Also, we performed behavioral assays with the leafhopper contrasting healthy non-attacked maize seedlings versus attacked seedlings. The maize landrace produced more than 6-fold larger quantities of induced volatiles compared to the maize hybrids after herbivory. Corn leafhopper females were able to detect and significantly preferred the odors of healthy seedlings over the attacked ones only in the landrace. They did not discriminate between the attacked and non-attacked hybrids. Additionally, we found that the attraction of the parasitoid wasp Anagrus virlai (Hymenoptera: Mymaridae) to its host was diminished in the tested hybrids. The parasitoid was able to detect the odors of the attacked landrace, however it was unable to discriminate between healthy and attacked maize hybrid plants. These results suggest that those more domesticated germplasms may have lost the ability not only to release volatiles that avoid colonization of future herbivores, but also to attract their natural enemies in a tritrophic system.

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Acknowledgments

We kindly thank Miss Barbara Salina, who helped collecting behavioral data. We also wish to thank the revision of Prof Dr. Matthias Erb, one anonymous reviewer and the editor who made highly valuable comments to an early version of this work. This research was supported by ANPCyT (Préstamo BID PICT 2015-1147 and partially by PICT 2014-0607).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. PROIMI-Biotecnología, Av. Belgrano y Pje. Caseros, S.M. de Tucumán, Tucumán, Argentina

    María Victoria Coll-Aráoz, Jorge G. Hill, Erica Luft-Albarracin & Eduardo G. Virla

  2. Facultad de Ciencias Naturales e IML, UNT, Miguel Lillo, 205, S.M. de Tucumán, Argentina

    María Victoria Coll-Aráoz

  3. Instituto de Entomología, Fundación M Lillo, Miguel Lillo, 251, S.M. de Tucumán, Argentina

    Eduardo G. Virla

  4. Centro de Investigaciones en Hidratos de Carbono, CIHIDECAR-CONICET, Buenos Aires, Argentina

    Patricia C. Fernandez

  5. Facultad de Agronomía, Universidad de Buenos Aires, Av. San Martin, 4453, Buenos Aires, Argentina

    Patricia C. Fernandez

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  1. María Victoria Coll-Aráoz
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  2. Jorge G. Hill
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Correspondence to Patricia C. Fernandez.

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Coll-Aráoz, M.V., Hill, J.G., Luft-Albarracin, E. et al. Modern Maize Hybrids Have Lost Volatile Bottom-Up and Top-Down Control of Dalbulus maidis, a Specialist Herbivore. J Chem Ecol 46, 906–915 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10886-020-01204-3

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