Chemodiversity affects preference for Tanacetum vulgare chemotypes in two aphid species

Abstract

Plants of the same species often strongly differ in morphological traits, as well as in the abundance and composition of specialized metabolite profiles. Specialized metabolites can act as mediators of interactions on plants, and affect insect presence and abundance in the field. However, how specialized chemistry shapes plant attractiveness to herbivorous insects is not fully understood. Here we used common tansy (Tanacetum vulgare L., Asteraceae) - a perennial plant that is highly diverse in terpenoid composition and is known to have variable chemotypes - to test whether 1) plants with different chemotype profiles differ in attractiveness to two specialized aphids, Macrosiphoniella tanacetaria and Uroleucon tanaceti, in pairwise choice assays. Furthermore, we tested whether 2) the diversity of the terpenoid blend affects aphid attractiveness. Lastly, we tested how 3) plant chemical traits relate to plant morphological traits, and which best explain aphid preference. We found that M. tanacetaria preferred two out of five chemotypes, dominated by -thujone/{beta}-thujone and {beta}-trans-chrysanthenyl acetate, respectively, while avoiding a chemotype dominated by -pinene/sabinene. U. tanaceti showed no clear preference towards chemotypes, but when given the choice between chemotypes dominated by -thujone/{beta}-thujone and by -pinene/sabinene, they preferred the former. Importantly, plant attractiveness to aphids tended to be negatively correlated with chemodiversity, i.e., the number of terpenoid compounds, in M. tanacetaria, but not in U. tanaceti. Interestingly, the approximate concentration and number of terpenoid compounds was generally higher in larger and bushier plants. Hence, we did not observe a trade-off between plant growth and defence. We conclude that plant chemical composition affects plant attractiveness to aphids and hence may contribute to variation in natural aphid colonization patterns on plants of the same species.