A link between host plant adaptation and pesticide resistance in the polyphagous spider mite Tetranychus urticae.

ABSTRACT: Plants produce a wide range of allelochemicals to defend against herbivore attack, and generalist herbivores have evolved mechanisms to avoid, sequester, or detoxify a broad spectrum of natural defense compounds. Successful arthropod pests have also developed resistance to diverse classes of pesticides and this adaptation is of critical importance to agriculture. To test whether mechanisms to overcome plant defenses predispose the development of pesticide resistance, we examined adaptation of the generalist two-spotted spider mite, Tetranychus urticae, to host plant transfer and pesticides. T. urticae is an extreme polyphagous pest with more than 1,100 documented hosts and has an extraordinary ability to develop pesticide resistance. When mites from a pesticide-susceptible strain propagate

SUBMITTER: Dermauw W 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3545796 | biostudies-literature | 2013 Jan

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature