Honeydew production and honeydew sugar composition of polyphagous black bean aphid, Aphis fabae (Hemiptera: Aphididae) on various host plants and implications for ant-attendance

Melanie K Fischer,Klaus H Hoffmann,Wolfgang Völkl

doi:10.14411/eje.2005.025

Abstract

The black bean aphid, Aphis fabae, is polyphagous and its life cycle involves seasonal migration between summer and winter host plants. The aphids are regularly tended by honeydew-collecting ants. This study investigates whether differences exist in honeydew production and honeydew sugar composition for A. fabae subspecies feeding on various host plants and whether such differences reflect differences in the intensity of ant-atttendance (Lasius niger).A. f. fabae feeding on the perennial summer host, Tanacetum vulgare, produced twice the amount of honeydew (ca. 110 µg per aphid . h-1) than when feeding on the annual host plants Vicia faba or Chenopodium album. Honeydew production of A. f. cirsiiacanthoides feeding on the creeping thistle Cirsium arvense was the highest measured in this study (ca. 150 µg per aphid . h-1). Total sugar concentration in the honeydew of A. f. fabae did not differ when feeding on various summer hosts, whereas the honeydew of A. f. cirsiiacanthoides on C. arvense contained a significantly higher amount of total sugars. The trisaccharide melezitose was the dominant sugar in all the honeydew samples, except for the honeydew of A. f. fabae and A. f. evonymi feeding on the woody winter host plant Evonymus europaeus. The highest proportion of melezitose (80% of total sugars) was found in the honeydew of A. f. cirsiiacanthoides feeding on C. arvense. In this subspecies, the intensity of ant-attendance was also highest. The results confirm our hypothesis, that the sugar richness of the honeydew (rate of honeydew secretion Ă total sugar concentration) along with the presence of the attractant sugar melezitose are the critical factors in determining the extent of ant-attendance.In A. f. fabae feeding on the spindle tree E. europaeus, the total sugar concentration of the honeydew as well as the sugar composition differed significantly between generations.

Highlights

Aphids (Aphidoidea) have commonly developed mutualistic relationships with ants
This study investigates whether differences exist in the honeydew composition of A. fabae subspecies feeding on various hosts and whether such differences in honeydew composition may result in differences in ant-attendance
We compared the sugar composition of the honeydew from three A. fabae subspecies, A. f. fabae, A. f. cirsiiacanthoides, and A. f. evonymi feeding on their respective summer hosts, and third we investigated the relationship between honeydew composition in A. fabae ssp. colonies on four herbaceous summer host plants and ant-attendance

Summary

Introduction

Aphids (Aphidoidea) have commonly developed mutualistic relationships with ants. The ants cover their carbohydrate demand by collecting “honeydew”, which is excreted by the aphids as a sweet waste product of their sugar-rich but amino acid-poor diet of phloem sap (Way, 1963). Honeydew production and honeydew composition vary considerably between aphid species (e.g. Hendrix et al, 1992; Völkl et al, 1999) but may vary within a particular aphid species in an age-specific pattern (Hertel & Kunkel, 1977; Fischer et al, 2002) or when feeding on different host plants. Honeydew production and honeydew composition may vary within a particular species on a definite host plant in response to changes in the aphid’s interaction with ants (Del-Claro & Oliveira, 1993; Fischer et al, 2001)

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