From PENSOFT PUBLISHERS and the “we don’t care if these garden pests die” department comes this curious study about aphids, or “plant lice” as they are called in the UK. Gotta love his investigative work when he comes up with insights like this: “he concluded that the plant lice are active during the day”. Zounds! Science!
PostDoc Project Plan invites collaborators to study how plant lice cope with variability
While Climate change steadily takes its toll, promising to raise temperatures around the world by at least 1.5 °C within the next 100 years, organisms have already started defending their species’ existence in their own ways. Possibly, such is the case of plant lice, which evoked the curiosity of PhD student Jens Joschinski with their reproductive strategy, which shifts from sexual to asexual as the days grow shorter in the autumn.
Entomologist Jens Joschinski, currently studying at the University of Würzburg, Germany, is interested in finding out to what extent this advanced reproductive strategy is affected by variable and unpredictable conditions. Do plant lice spread their risks to reduce their losses (like investors that buy hedge funds), or do they put all their eggs in one basket? If plant lice manage their risks, does this adaptation compromise fitness?
By formally publishing his research idea as a PostDoc Project Plant in the open access journal Research Ideas and Outcomes, he hopes to find fellow scientists to collaborate with, as well as a host institutions.
Plant lice reproduce asexually during summer, which means that the mother give live birth to offspring by cloning herself. Then, as the days become shorter, indicating the approaching winter, the plant lice begin to produce eggs, since only they tolerate low temperature and can overwinter. However, there is a transitional period when a fraction of the same species still produce asexual offspring, which is what made Jens Joschinski wonder if this is an intended evolutionary response to climate change.
In order to assess the link between variable climates and the transition to sexual offspring, the PhD student plans to study at least 12 plant lice clones from different environments across Europe, and induce reproductive switches under controlled laboratory conditions. Afterwards, he is to assess the fitness and the ‘cost’ of this microevolution phenomenon.
The PostDoc Project Plan is to build on Jens Joschinski’s research done as part of his doctoral thesis, which is to be submitted for publication later this year. Then, while also being trained in evolutionary biology, he concluded that the plant lice are active during the day, which explains why they suffer fitness constraints related to the shorter days.
“The intended methods leave room for collaborative side-projects beyond the study question (e.g. molecular control of photoperiodism, or sharing aphid lines from throughout Europe), so this article might be of interest to anyone working with aphids”, he points to his fellow entomologists. “In addition, I would be happy to receive feedback from experts in bet-hedging theory, phenotypic plasticity and photoperiodism.”
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Original source:
Joschinski J (2016) Benefits and costs of aphid phenological bet-hedging strategies. Research Ideas and Outcomes 2: e9580. doi: 10.3897/rio.2.e9580
So we can just watch this go insane when the 12 year cycle of the locust. grasshoppers, hits the east coast. Those in Texas have a bird food insect, most call love bugs, that come out every year. When we have a colder than normal winter, The love bugs come out with a vengeance. mother natures way of feeding the bird population quickly.
As the study’s author is German (Jens Joschinski, Würzburg, Germany), I wonder whether he simply picked the translation most similar to the German word ‘Blattlaus’ (literally ‘leaf-louse’).
http://www.dict.cc/deutsch-englisch/Blattlaus.html
Blattlaus translates as aphid, greenfly and plant louse on that site, though I have never heard the term ‘plant louse’ used in the UK.
(NB – the author may not be German, but he appears to be based in Germany)
I think the article is translated from German: it’s got that “went the day well?” germannic grammar.
I have seen Aphids on Roses thriving and sucking at 110 degrees F.
S. Australia recently had Russian wheat aphids appear. Many farmers are concerned since the associated loss (estimate) is up to 75% damage from them. Were 1st reported in Tarlee region but have spread rapidly.
Part of Putin’s plot to de-stabilize western economies.