Abstract
Thermal response and tolerance to ambient temperature play important roles in determining the geographic distribution and seasonal abundance of insects. We examined the survival and performance, as well as expression of three heat shock protein related genes, of two species of invasive whiteflies, Middle East-Asia Minor 1 (MEAM1) and Mediterranean (MED), of the Bemisia tabaci species complex following exposure to a range of low and high temperatures. Our data demonstrated that the MED species was more tolerant to high temperatures than the MEAM1 species, especially in the adult stage, and this difference in thermal responses may be related to the heat shock protein related genes hsp90 and hsp70. These findings may assist in understanding and predicting the distribution and abundance of the two invasive whiteflies in the field.
Highlights
Compared to the egg hatch at the control temperature of 26 °C, the percentages of egg hatch following a 2 h exposure to high temperatures from 37 to 45 °C did not decline significantly; and in no case did the percentages of egg hatch differ between the two whitefly species at the same temperature regime (P > 0.05 in all cases; Fig. 1)
Compared to the adult emergence at the control temperature of 26 °C, the percentages of pupal survival, i.e. adult emergence, did not decline following a 6 h exposure to high temperatures from 37 to 41 °C, in both MEAM1 and MED; a 6 h exposure to 43 °C resulted in subsequent decline of percentages of adult emergence from nearly 100% to about 40%, in both MEAM1 and MED, and a 6 h exposure to 45 °C resulted in the decline to close to zero, in both MEAM1 and MED (Fig. 2)
Similar to the consequence of exposure of eggs to high temperatures, in no case did the percentages of adult emergence differ between the two whitefly species (P > 0.05 in all cases; Fig. 2)
Summary
Currently available case studies provide yet insufficient knowledge of the differences between MEAM1 and MED in their thermal tolerance, because in many cases the experiments were conducted on one of the two species at a time and due to the effects of various factors, such as differences of environmental variables other than temperature, data obtained by different authors may not be compared directly[34,36]. We compared the survival and reproduction of the MEAM1 and MED whiteflies from China following exposure of different life stages of the insects to low and high temperatures. We conducted a range of experiments to compare temperature tolerance between MEAM1 and MED whiteflies from Zhejiang, China, that have been maintained in the laboratory for several years. Our objective was to quantify the differences in tolerance to extreme temperatures between the two important species of invasive whiteflies, especially for the populations of these invasive whiteflies in China
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