2025/09/17 by Tian Xu, Yao Chen, Meng Xu +3 · 1 voice
Agricultural and Biological Sciences · Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology · #Insect and Arachnid Ecology and Behavior #Insect-Plant Interactions and Control #Plant and animal studies
paper · doi:10.1016/j.jia.2025.06.009
openalex publication_date 2025/09/17 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/23
• Phenotypic plasticity is the ability of organisms to adapt to environmental changes. Many aphids have evolved facultative mutualistic relationships with ants, but the colonies must often cope without ants. • Attendance by red imported fire ants, Solenopsis invicta , increased the proportions of cotton aphids ( Aphis gossypii ) distributed on the nutritive parts of cotton seedlings (stem, petioles, and sprouts; SPS). However, in the absence of tending ants, the aphids on SPS suffered higher predation risk than on leaves. But the aphids can rapidly shift to leaves to reduce the proportions on SPS when the predatory ladybug or its signals were present. • Aphid distribution patterns have adaptive plasticity which allows aphid colonies to optimize their fitness by responding to the presence of mutualistic ants or predatory threats with flexibility. Phenotypic plasticity is a crucial adaptive strategy that allows organisms to respond to environmental changes. Many aphids have evolved mutualistic relationships with ants, whereby aphids provide honeydew in exchange for protection from natural enemies. Such ant-aphid mutualisms are often facultative and aphid colonies must often cope without ants. We show here that attendance by red imported fire ants, Solenopsis invicta , alters the within-plant distribution of cotton aphids ( Aphis gossypii ), resulting in fewer aphids on leaves and more on the stem, petioles, and sprouts (SPS) of cotton seedlings compared to colonies without ant attendance. The nitrogen contents in stems and sprouts were higher than in leaves, which may be a reason for the significantly higher population growth in ant-tended colonies. In contrast, exposure to the signals of a predatory ladybug, Coccinella septempunctata , resulted in a remarkably smaller aphid colony size, with lower proportions of aphids distributed on SPS, but a higher proportion on the leaves, compared to those in the predator-free colonies. In addition, ladybug predation risk is considerably higher on SPS than on leaves, and aphids showed rapid positional shifts from stems to leaves upon direct exposure to a ladybug, highlighting their ability to respond swiftly to predator presence. Our findings reveal adaptive plasticity in aphid distribution patterns which enable aphid colonies to optimize their fitness by responding to the presence of mutualistic ants or predatory threats with flexibility.