Excel Workbook for automatic parameter calculation of EPG data

Abstract

The electrical penetration graph (EPG) technique is a powerful tool for studying feeding behavior of pierce-sucking insects, because it allows quantification of complex insect–plant interactions occurring inside the plant. However, this technique has an important limitation related to the time-consuming analysis of the acquired data, mainly due to the length of the EPG recordings and the complexity of the parameters used to explore insect behavior. This paper presents a Microsoft Excel Workbook that simplifies the analyses of EPG data and automatically calculates a large number of EPG parameters that characterize insect probing and ingestion behavior. These parameters arise from a wide review of EPG papers related to different aspects of insect–plant and virus–insect vector interactions. Another advantage of this application is that data input can be entered from both AC- and DC-based amplifiers and from different software packages used to acquire EPG data (e.g. MacStylet, WINDAQ and PROBE). The workbook summarizes the results and generates an output sheet for further statistical analysis. In this report, we explain how the workbook can be used to analyze the probing and ingestion behavior of two hemipteran species, demonstrating its flexibility and potentiality for efficient and rapid analysis of EPG data.