Spider mites suppress tomato defenses downstream of jasmonate and salicylate independently of hormonal crosstalk.

ABSTRACT: Plants respond to herbivory by mounting a defense. Some plant-eating spider mites (Tetranychus spp.) have adapted to plant defenses to maintain a high reproductive performance. From natural populations we selected three spider mite strains from two species, Tetranychus urticae and Tetranychus evansi, that can suppress plant defenses, using a fourth defense-inducing strain as a benchmark, to assess to which extent these strains suppress defenses differently. We characterized timing and magnitude of phytohormone accumulation and defense-gene expression, and determined if mites that cannot suppress defenses benefit from sharing a leaf with suppressors. The nonsuppressor strain induced a mixture of jasmonate- (JA) and salicylate (SA)-dependent defenses. Induced defense genes separated into thr

SUBMITTER: Alba JM 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4301184 | biostudies-literature | 2015 Jan

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature