Acyrthosiphon pisum, pea aphid

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cellular organisms - Eukaryota - Fungi/Metazoa group - Metazoa - Eumetazoa - Bilateria - Coelomata - Protostomia - Panarthropoda - Arthropoda - Mandibulata - Pancrustacea - Hexapoda - Insecta - Dicondylia - Pterygota - Neoptera - Paraneoptera - Hemiptera - Sternorrhyncha - Aphidiformes - Aphidomorpha - Aphidoidea - Aphididae - Aphidinae - Macrosiphini - Acyrthosiphon - Acyrthosiphon pisum

Brief facts: aphids (Aphididae)

• Taxonomy

  A family (Aphididae) of small insects ((~4,400 species), in the suborder Sternorrhyncha, that suck the juices of plants. Important genera include Schizaphis and Myzus.

• Aphids in North America

  The combined effects of global warming, the increase in international trade and traveling and habitat modification increase the probability of introducing new specis. For example, 261 (18%) of the 1,15 aphid species present in North America are concidered to be exotic. Europ is the leading source of introduced species (63%)., whereas tropical and subtropical aphid species currently make up a minority of the exotic species in North America. Among the 261 exotic species in North America, 3% are considered to be potential pests, with 18% being considered highly damaging pests.

• Economic importance

  Aphids may cause losses of up to 30% in crops. Moreover, they are efficient vectors of hundreds of viral diseases in plants. For example, potato leaf roll virus (PLRV) and potato virus Y (PVY) by the peach-potato aphid M. persicae and barley yellow dwarf virus (BYDV) by the grain aphid S. avenae.

• Enemies

  Many organisms, including entomopathogenous fungi, predators or parasites, use aphids as resources. Best known aphid predators are ladybugs, for example, Coccinella septempunctata (seven-spotted ladybug or C-7). Parasites of aphids are mostly endoparasitoid insects, i.e. insects which lay eggs inside the body of an other insect which will die as a result of their development. In this article, we review the consequences of the numerous pecularities of aphid biology and ecology for their endoparasitoids, notably the Aphidiinae (Hymenoptera: Braconidae).

• Endosymbionts

  Aphids provide exellent model for maternally transmitted symbionts. The primary symbionts, Buchnera aphidicola, inhabits specialized cells (bacteriocytes), and is required for host development, growth and reproduction.

Brief facts: pea aphid (Acyrthosiphon pisum)

• Host plants

  In comparison to many other aphid species that are entirely host specific, the pea aphid is found on a few different families of plants which are the alfalfas, clovers, and field beans.

• Model organism

  A. pisum is the primary aphid used in laboratory studies because of its relatively large size and simplicity of rearing.

• Genome

  A. pisum has a haploid genome size of approximately 300Mb on four holocentric chromosomes.

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Developmental stages

Most aphids have two genetically distinct types of life cycle within the one species: holocyclic and anholocyclic. In the holocyclic life cycle, multiple generations reproduce asexually from spring through to summer and to early autumn and then, in response to decreasing photoperiod, sexual morphs (males and egg-laying females – the oviparae) are produced, which mate and lay the overwintering eggs, which are very cold hardy. Anholocyclic clones arise from a genetically stable mutation that renders the aphids unresponsive to the decreasing photoperiodic cue that triggers the sexual morphs and egg production in the autumn. These clones reproduce asexually the whole year round, with increases and decreases in the rates of development and reproduction governed by seasonal changes in temperature. However, in contrast to their eggs, the overwintering ‘active stages’ of anholocyclic clones are much less cold hardy – mortality increases from 0% to >90% as the temperature decreases from around –5°C to <–15°C.

Life Cycle Stages

The holocyclic life cycle of the pea aphid begins at spring and continues up to the moment when the insects start laying eggs for overwintering. In warm climates adult insects can continue feeding and parthenogenetic reproduction even in winter months.

Lacking larval and pupal stages aphid's metamorphosis is incomplete.

• egg in fall oviparous (sexual) females lay fertilized eggs that hatch the follwing spring; the total period of egg development is approximately 100 days; this period is considered as an embryonic diapause, a physiological phenomenon of slow development under certain conditions; all insects that hatched from the eggs are females which reproduce by viviparous parthenogenesis
• nymph MeSH each asexual adult female gives birth up to 4-12 female nymphs per day; nymph develops into mature female for 7-10 days; when the colony becomes overcrowded some winged females are produced; the winged insects migrate to infest other plants
• adult there are following types of adults: asexual (viviparous parthenogenetic) females, which can be wingless or winged; sexual (oviparous) females, and males, which appear when temperatures become colder and light period shorter; life span of an adult is about 30 days

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Effect of climate change on aphids

Aphids preferentially inhabit temperate regions of northern hemisphere. They are particularly well adapted to regions with cold winter because their eggs are very cold hardy. The rate of development in aphids is directly dependent on temperature. The minimum tempereature at which development of A. pisum can proceed ranges between 2.3 and 6.3 °C. A female aphid requires a certain number of degree-days above the threshold to reach adulthood (99-147 in A. pisum). This is a particularly short generation time even among insects. In some european countries aphids are mostly living in suboptimal temperature conditions. Therefore, global warming would favor the proliferation of aphids. For example, an increase in temperature of only 2°C would allow the number of generations produced per year to increase from 18 to 23 in the UK.

Other biological functions influenced by temperature include dispersal and reproduction. Higher temperatures increase both the number of winged individuals produced and their flying capacity. Lower temperature thresholds for flight are generally around 13-16°C and upper thresholds around 31°C.

Sustained temperatures above 20°C might delay or even totally prevent sexual reproduction in aphids thus allowing parthenogenetic reproduction and the survival of active individuals throughout the year.

Aphids are also affected by environment through the host plants. Increases in CO₂ and O₃ that affect plants negatively elicit varied responses depending on aphid species and it is not possible to establish general rules for all aphid populations.

At a pan-European scale, the EXAMINE observation network has provided evidence for an increase in the number of aphid species present over the last 30 years and for earlier spring flights.

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References

• Shingleton AW, Sisk GC, Stern DL. Diapause in the pea aphid (Acyrthosiphon pisum) is a slowing but not a cessation of development. BMC Dev Biol. 2003; 3: 7. (PMID: 12908880)

  Copyright © 2003 Shingleton et al; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. This is an Open Access article: verbatim copying and redistribution of this article are permitted in all media for any purpose, provided this notice is preserved along with the article's original URL.

  

  Development the sexually-produced pea aphid embryo, under 'winter-like' conditions. (A) At day 15 the antennae (an), mandibles (not visible in this image), maxillae (mx), labium (lb), and thoracic limbs (t1–t3) are visible, as are the germ cells (gc) and bacteriocyte (b). (B) By day 21 the embryo has straightened with considerable growth of the appendages. (C) Nuclear staining of anti-Histone H3, which can be seen as brown spots (arrowhead) on the embryo, reveals cell division at day 21. (D) At day 35 the legs but not the body are longer than at day 21. (E) Cell division is also evident at day 35 with anti-Histone H3 staining (arrowhead). (F) At day 48 dividing cells stained with anti-Histone H3 are again observed (arrowhead). At this stage the embryo is lying in the centre of the egg. (G) At day 63 the embryo begins katatrepsis and has moved to the posterior of the egg, with the amnion (am) in contact with the serosa (s). (H) At day 70 the embryo is curled at the posterior of the egg. The amnion and serosa have fused into a single membrane, here called the amnioserosa. (I) At day 77 the embryo has completed katatrepsis and has a cap of putative aminioserosa at its anterior end. (J) At a slightly later stage another embryo has a reduced "amnioserosal cap". (K) At day 84 dorsal closure has been completed and the embryo has deposited an embryonic cuticle, complete with egg burster (eb). All scale bars are 100 μm long. Embryos are orientated as they would be in the egg, with the anterior of the egg to the left.

• Chittka L, Döring TF. Are autumn foliage colors red signals to aphids? PLoS Biol. 2007 Aug;5(8):e187. (PMID: 17696643)

  

  At the beginning at this decade our view that the beauty of autumn leaves is only a by-product of physiological processes inside the doomed leaves were challenged. According to the new hypothesis, trees with particularly strong coloration send an honest signal to aphids, informing them of the strength of anti-herbivore defenses of these trees. But to appropriately predict the responses of aphids to colors requires us not only to examine the physiology of their eyes (inset lower right: scanning electron micrograph of the eye of the black bean aphid Aphis fabae, courtesy of J. Hardie) but also their behavioral responses to colors under controlled laboratory conditions (inset, upper left: the foxglove aphid Aulacorthum solani probing a yellow artificial target; photo by S. Kirchner).

• Le Trionnaire G et al. Shifting from clonal to sexual reproduction in aphids: physiological and developmental aspects. Biol Cell. 2008 Aug;100(8):441-51.
• PubMed: free full text articles about aphids
• Bale JS, Hayward SA. Aphids in the face of global changes. C R Biol. 2010 Jun-Jul;333(6-7):497-503.
• Le Ralec A et al. Evolutionary ecology of the interactions between aphids and their parasitoids. C R Biol. 2010 Jun-Jul;333(6-7):554-65.
• Effect of climate change on aphids. Evolutionary ecology of the interactions between aphids and their parasitoids. C R Biol. 2010 Jun-Jul;333(6-7):554-65.

Websites

• Proposal to sequence the genome of the Pea Aphid (Acyrthosiphon pisum).

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