Abstract

The whitefly Bemisia tabaci (Gennadius) (Hemiptera: Aleyrodidae) causes serious crop losses worldwide by transmitting viruses. We have previously shown that salicylic acid (SA)-related plant defenses directly affect whiteflies. In this study, we applied exogenous SA to tomato plants in order to investigate the interaction between SA-induced plant volatiles and nonviruliferous B. tabaci B and Q or B- and Q-carrying tomato yellow leaf curl virus (TYLCV). The results showed that exogenous SA caused plants to repel nonviruliferous whiteflies, but the effect was reduced when the SA concentration was low and when the whiteflies were viruliferous. Exogenous SA increased the number and quantity of plant volatiles—especially the quantity of methyl salicylate and δ-limonene. In Y-tube olfactometer assays, methyl salicylate and δ-limonene repelled the whiteflies, but the repellency was reduced for viruliferous Q. We suggest that the release of plant volatiles as mediated by SA affects the interaction between whiteflies, plants, and viruses. Further studies are needed to determine why viruliferous Q is less sensitive than nonviruliferous Q to repellent plant volatiles.

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

6-30-2016

Notes/Citation Information

Published in International Journal of Molecular Sciences, v. 17, issue 7, 1048, p. 1-11.

© 2016 by the authors; licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland.

This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC-BY) license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).

Digital Object Identifier (DOI)

https://doi.org/10.3390/ijms17071048

Funding Information

This research was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (3120103919, 31401747, and 31572014), the Special Fund for Agroscientific Research in the Public Interest (201303019), the China Agriculture Research System (CARS-26-10), the Beijing Key Laboratory for Pest Control and Sustainable Cultivation of Vegetables, and the Beijing Training Project for the Leading Talents in S & T (LJRC201412).

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