Section: Ecology
Topic: Ecology

Spider mites collectively avoid plants with cadmium irrespective of their frequency or the presence of competitors

Godinho, Diogo Prino1   ; Fragata, Inês1  ; de la Masseliere, Maud Charlery1; Magalhães, Sara1 
1 cE3c, Centre for Ecology, Evolution and Environmental changes & CHANGE, - Global Change and Sustainability Institute, Faculdade de Ciências da Universidade de Lisboa, Edifício C2, Campo Grande 1749- 016 Lisbon, Portugal.

10.24072/pcjournal.435 - Peer Community Journal, Volume 4 (2024), article no. e64.

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Accumulation of heavy metals by plants can serve as a defence against herbivory. Herbivores, in turn, may avoid feeding on contaminated tissues. Such avoidance, however, may hinge upon the specific conditions faced by herbivores. Here, we tested whether the spider mite Tetranychus urticae avoids tomato plants contaminated with cadmium in presence of conspecifics or heterospecifics and depending on the frequency of contaminated plants. We show that individual spider mite females do not preferentially move to leaf tissues with or without cadmium, despite clear costs on their performance. However, in a set-up where 200 mites were simultaneously given the choice between four plants with or without cadmium, they collectively avoided plants with cadmium, irrespective of the proportion of plants with cadmium. In addition, T. urticae did not discriminate between plants infested with its competitor T. evansi and other uncontaminated plants but they preferred plants with competitors when the other plants contained cadmium. Our results show that aggregation may facilitate avoidance of contaminated plants. They also indicate that cadmium accumulation in plants is a stronger selective pressure than interspecific competition with T. evansi. Therefore, collective avoidance of metal-accumulating plants by herbivores is robust to environmental conditions and may have important consequences for species distribution and interactions in metal contaminated sites.

Published online:
DOI: 10.24072/pcjournal.435
Type: Research article

Godinho, Diogo Prino 1; Fragata, Inês 1; de la Masseliere, Maud Charlery 1; Magalhães, Sara 1

1 cE3c, Centre for Ecology, Evolution and Environmental changes & CHANGE, - Global Change and Sustainability Institute, Faculdade de Ciências da Universidade de Lisboa, Edifício C2, Campo Grande 1749- 016 Lisbon, Portugal.
License: CC-BY 4.0
Copyrights: The authors retain unrestricted copyrights and publishing rights 
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     title = {Spider mites collectively avoid plants with cadmium irrespective of their frequency or the presence of competitors},
     journal = {Peer Community Journal},
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Godinho, Diogo Prino; Fragata, Inês; de la Masseliere, Maud Charlery; Magalhães, Sara. Spider mites collectively avoid plants with cadmium irrespective of their frequency or the presence of competitors. Peer Community Journal, Volume 4 (2024), article  no. e64. doi : 10.24072/pcjournal.435. https://peercommunityjournal.org/articles/10.24072/pcjournal.435/

PCI peer reviews and recommendation, and links to data, scripts, code and supplementary information: 10.24072/pci.ecology.100593

Conflict of interest of the recommender and peer reviewers:
The recommender in charge of the evaluation of the article and the reviewers declared that they have no conflict of interest (as defined in the code of conduct of PCI) with the authors or with the content of the article.

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