10.5061/DRYAD.FC1M8
Birnbaum, Stephanie S.L.
Vanderbilt University
Rinker, David C.
Vanderbilt University
Gerardo, Nicole M.
Emory University
Abbot, Patrick
Vanderbilt University
Birnbaum, Stephanie S. L.
Vanderbilt University
Data from: Transcriptional profile and differential fitness in a
specialist milkweed insect across host plants varying in toxicity
Dryad
dataset
2017
sequestration
herbivore
milkweed
Tolerance
Aphis nerii
secondary metabolite
National Science Foundation
https://ror.org/021nxhr62
DGE-1445197
2017-11-01T14:04:52Z
2017-11-01T14:04:52Z
en
https://doi.org/10.1111/mec.14401
25658755 bytes
1
CC0 1.0 Universal (CC0 1.0) Public Domain Dedication
Interactions between plants and herbivorous insects have been models for
theories of specialization and coevolution for over a century.
Phytochemicals govern many aspects of these interactions and have fostered
the evolution of adaptations by insects to tolerate or even specialize on
plant defensive chemistry. While genomic approaches are providing new
insights into the genes and mechanisms insect specialists employ to
tolerate plant secondary metabolites, open questions remain about the
evolution and conservation of insect counter-defenses, how insects respond
to the diversity defenses mounted by their host plants, and the costs and
benefits of resistance and tolerance to plant defenses in natural
ecological communities. Using a milkweed-specialist aphid (Aphis nerii)
model, we test the effects of host plant species with increased toxicity,
likely driven primarily by increased secondary metabolites, on aphid life
history traits and whole body gene expression. We show that more toxic
plant species have a negative effect on aphid development and lifetime
fecundity. When feeding on more toxic host plants with higher levels of
secondary metabolites, aphids regulate a narrow, targeted set of genes,
including those involved in canonical detoxification processes (e.g.,
cytochrome P450s, hydrolases, UDP-glucuronosyltransferases, and ABC
transporters). These results indicate that A. nerii marshal a variety of
metabolic detoxification mechanisms to circumvent milkweed toxicity and
facilitate host plant specialization, yet, despite these detoxification
mechanisms, aphids experience reduced fitness when feeding on more toxic
host plants. Disentangling how specialist insects respond to challenging
host plants is a pivotal step in understanding the evolution of
specialized diet breadths.
Development to Adult dataEach aphid is represented with a line; day column
indicates day aphid matured to adult.adult_total.csvFecundity dataEach
line represents a plant; number of adults and offspring each day were
counted for daily average fecundity.fecundity_total.csvSurvival dataEach
line represents an aphid; day column represents the experimental day the
aphid died.survival_total.csvMicrosatellite dataMicrosatellite lengths
(bp) are indicated for three A. nerii genotypes at six
loci.microsats.xlsxDESEQ2 for A. nerii transcriptomeFile is output of
DESEQ2 showing differential expression for all A. nerii transcripts. Ax3 =
mean expression on A. incarnata; Bx3 = mean expression on G.
physocarpus.APHNE_DESEQ.csvA. nerii transcriptome sequencesAssembled A.
nerii nucleotide sequences (APHNE).A.nerii.coding.sequences.fa