Comparison Of Fitness Between The Biotype B And ZHJ2 Of Bemisia Tabaci On Four Ecotypes Of Arabidopsis Thaliana

It has been shown that the invasive B biotype of Bemisia tabaci (Gennadius) performed much better on cruciferous plants than the indigenous ZHJ1 biotype. Glucosinolates are typical secondary metabolites of the Brassicaceae family. Glucosinolates have an important role in plant defense against generalist insect herbivores. Many studies indicated that glucosinolates also play importmant roles in host finding, host feeding and ovipositing by herbivorous insects. Therefore, we hypothesize that the capacity of utilizing crucifer plants between biotypes B and non-B is related to their capacity to cope with the glucosinolates. To test this hypotheis, we compared the performance of biotype B and ZHJ2 of Bemisia tabaci on four Arabidopsis thaliana ecotypes with different glucosinolate profiles. The results are summarized as follows.(1) Glucosinolate analysis. We analyzed glucosinolate composition and concentrantion in four Arabidopsis thaliana ecotypes by HPLC. The data indicated that the glucosinolates in Arabidopsis thaliana leaves consisted of aliphatic glucosinolates and indole glucosinolates, and the concentrantion of aliphatic glucosinolates was higher than that of indole glucosinolates. Glucosinolates levels in four Arabidopsis thaliana ecotypes are different. The descending sequence of total glucosinolates and aliphatic glucosinolates concentration in four ecotypes is: Kas > Cvi > Pi-0 > Col, while, the descending sequence of indole glucosinolates concentrantion is: Kas > Pi-0 > Col > Cvi.(2) The performance of the biotype B and ZHJ2 Bemisia tabaci on Arabidopsis thaliana ecotypes with different glucosinolate profiles.The B biotype could live longer, laid more eggs and developed more faster than ZHJ2 biotype. For both two biotypes, the number of eggs laid by females were the highest, the survival rate of egg to adult highest and the development time from egg to adult shortest on Col ecotype. For B biotype, the total number of eggs laid by females and the survival from egg to adult were the lowest on Kas ecotype. But the fitness of the ZHJ2 biotype was low on either Kas, Pi-0 or Cvi ecotype. The combined results showed that the differences between the performance of biotype B and ZHJ2 of B. tabaci on Arabidopsis thaliana ecotypes were not related to the concentrantion of aliphatic glucosinolates, indole glucosinolates and total glucosinolates, at least within the extent examined in this study.