Life-table analyses for the tomato leaf miner, Tuta absoluta (Meyrick) (Lepidoptera: Gelechiidae): effects of plant genotype

Megha Guruswamy*, Murugan Marimuthu, Moshe Coll

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

6 Scopus citations

Abstract

BACKGROUND: Host plant resistance plays an important role in integrated pest management programs. Crop resistance assessments commonly focus on only a single dependent variable, such as larval survival/plant damage, which limits the ability to appreciate the impact of host plants on pest populations in the full sense. Therefore, we performed life-table analyses for tomato leaf miner Tuta absoluta, on 19 Solanum lycopersicum genotypes and a wild Solanum habrochaites accession. These analyses assess the ability of the pest to attain a high population density on different tomato genotypes. Based on the resulting ranking of tomato resistance at the vegetative stage (45-day-old plants), we tested the resistance of six selected genotypes at the reproductive stage (4-month-old plants). RESULTS: T. absoluta performance was significantly inferior on vegetative-stage S. habrochaites plants (LA 1777); time taken for the first instars to mine the leaves (5 ± 0.14 days), development time of early- and late-stage larvae (8.8 ± 0.2 and 4.2 ± 0.2 days, respectively), pupal period (11.2 ± 0.58 days), and total developmental time (29.4 ± 0.83 days) were significantly longer, fecundity was significantly lower (18.66 ± 7.24 days), and the highest total mortality (63.33%) also recorded compared with other genotypes, resulting in the lowest net reproductive rate (R0) (11.20 ± 2.51). For the six selected genotypes, the ranking of plant resistance did not change between plants at the vegetative and reproductive stages. CONCLUSION: This study suggested that of 20 screened tomato genotypes, LA 1777 and EC-620343 are the least suitable hosts for T. absoluta to establish fast-growing populations, and thus can be employed in integrated T. absoluta management.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)2117-2125
Number of pages9
JournalPest Management Science
Volume79
Issue number6
DOIs
StatePublished - Jun 2023

Bibliographical note

Publisher Copyright:
© 2023 The Authors. Pest Management Science published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd on behalf of Society of Chemical Industry.

Keywords

  • Solanum habrochaites
  • Solanum lycopersicum
  • Tuta absoluta
  • host plant resistance
  • life-table

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