Baculovirus-induced climbing behavior favors intraspecific necrophagy and efficient disease transmission in Spodoptera exigua

Rebolledo, Dulce; Lasa, Rodrigo; Guevara, Roger; Murillo Pérez, Rosa; Williams, Trevor

Baculovirus-induced climbing behavior favors intraspecific necrophagy and efficient disease transmission in Spodoptera exigua

dc.contributor.author	Rebolledo, Dulce
dc.contributor.author	Lasa, Rodrigo
dc.contributor.author	Guevara, Roger
dc.contributor.author	Murillo Pérez, Rosa
dc.contributor.author	Williams, Trevor
dc.contributor.department	IdAB. Instituto de Agrobiotecnología / Agrobioteknologiako Institutua	es_ES
dc.date.accessioned	2020-09-16T11:21:51Z
dc.date.available	2020-09-16T11:21:51Z
dc.date.issued	2015
dc.description.abstract	Shortly prior to death, many species of Lepidoptera infected with nucleopolyhedrovirus climb upwards on the host plant. This results in improved dissemination of viral occlusion bodies over plant foliage and an increased probability of transmission to healthy conspecific larvae. Following applications of Spodoptera exigua multiple nucleopolyhedrovirus for control of Spodoptera exigua on greenhouse-grown sweet pepper crops, necrophagy was observed by healthy S. exigua larvae that fed on virus-killed conspecifics. We examined whether this risky behavior was induced by olfactory or phagostimulant compounds associated with infected cadavers. Laboratory choice tests and olfactometer studies, involving infected and non-infected cadavers placed on spinach leaf discs, revealed no evidence for greater attraction of healthy larvae to virus-killed over non-infected cadavers. Physical contact or feeding on infected cadavers resulted in a very high incidence of transmission (82–93% lethal disease). Observations on the behavior of S. exigua larvae on pepper plants revealed that infected insects died on the uppermost 10% of foliage and closer to the plant stem than healthy conspecifics of the same stage, which we considered clear evidence of baculovirus-induced climbing behavior. Healthy larvae that subsequently foraged on the plant were more frequently observed closer to the infected than the non-infected cadaver. Healthy larvae also encountered and fed on infected cadavers significantly more frequently and more rapidly than larvae that fed on non-infected cadavers. Intraspecific necrophagy on infected cadavers invariably resulted in virus transmission and death of the necrophagous insect. We conclude that, in addition to improving the dissemination of virus particles over plant foliage, baculovirus-induced climbing behavior increases the incidence of intraspecific necrophagy in S. exigua, which is the most efficient mechanism of transmission of this lethal pathogen.	en
dc.description.sponsorship	DR received a Consejo Nacional de Ciencia y Tecnología (Mexico) scholarship, a student mobility grant and a Fomento de la Producción Académica grant from the Instituto de Ecología AC.	en
dc.format.extent	16 p.
dc.format.mimetype	application/pdf	en
dc.identifier.doi	10.1371/journal.pone.0136742
dc.identifier.issn	1932-6203
dc.identifier.uri	https://academica-e.unavarra.es/handle/2454/38139
dc.language.iso	eng	en
dc.publisher	Public Library of Science	en
dc.relation.ispartof	PLoS ONE, 2015, 10(9), e0136742	en
dc.relation.publisherversion	https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0136742
dc.rights	© 2015 Rebolledo et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.	en
dc.rights.accessRights	info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess
dc.rights.uri	https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
dc.subject	Insects	en
dc.subject	Larvae	en
dc.subject	Animal behavior	en
dc.subject	Leaves	en
dc.subject	Moths and butterflies	en
dc.subject	Spinach	en
dc.subject	Decision making	en
dc.subject	Plant viral pathogens	en
dc.title	Baculovirus-induced climbing behavior favors intraspecific necrophagy and efficient disease transmission in Spodoptera exigua	en
dc.type	info:eu-repo/semantics/article
dc.type.version	info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersion
dspace.entity.type	Publication
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relation.isAuthorOfPublication.latestForDiscovery	46f59760-02e7-4f4d-bfb2-e505b2875f48