Ecophysiological Effects Induced by an Oligophagous Insect Herbivore in an Early Spring Geophyte

Insect herbivores, whose larval stages live and feed inside a plant leaf, are expected to have an impact on the leaf beyond the actual tissue damage. They might influence leaf photosynthesis. Here, we provide a brief insight by studying a simple model relationship between the spring geophyte ramsons Allium ursinum with short-lived green leaves and its oligophagous, leaf-mining hoverfly Cheilosia fasciata. We expected that the effect of leaf miners on short-lived leaves could interfere with resource allocation for the next season. Measurements of leaf greenness and chlorophyll fluorescence were performed to evaluate the stress impact of leaf miner damage upon photosynthesis during the short vegetative season of ramsons. Results showed that the onset of leaf senescence occurred earlier in infested leaves, which was also indicated by lower maximum efficiency of photochemistry compared to non-infested leaves. There was no evidence that infested leaves were able to compensate for the damage by increasing the rate of photosynthesis. Given the short lifespan of leaves and the earlier onset of senescence in infested leaves, we discuss two differential hypotheses: negative effects for the plant if the larvae have already left the mine, and negative effects for the leaf miner if the larvae are still developing inside the leaf.

• Publication year

  2021

• Venue

  Unknown venue

• Publication date

  2021-06-08

• Fields of study

  Biology, Environmental Science

• Identifiers
  DOI 10.21203/RS.3.RS-546492/V1
• External record

  Open on Semantic Scholar

• Source metadata

  Semantic Scholar

• No claims are published for this paper.

• No concepts are published for this paper.

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