Increased feeding damage under elevated Co2: The case of the Russian wheat aphid

We report the results of a baseline study on the effects of Russian wheat aphid infestation on barley lines grown under ambient and elevated (450 and 550 μmol mol− 1) CO2 concentrations [CO2]. Elevated CO2 impacted on plant biomass, C:N ratios and leaf nitrogen concentrations. Visible manifestation of aphid feeding related damage was assessed by examining resultant chlorosis and leaf roll under ambient and two elevated [CO2] levels using a control and three resistant barley host combinations. Elevated [CO2] had a significant positive effect on the growth of the four barley lines that were not infested by the aphids. However under the same conditions aphid feeding under elevated CO2 conditions caused very high biomass loss, which was more noticeable in experiments involving non-resistant PUMA than in the resistant barley lines. The results of this study demonstrate that CO2 enrichment substantially increases aphid populations of RWASA1 and RWASA2 on the four barley lines investigated. Furthermore, aphid populations were higher on non-resistant PUMA than the three resistant lines and the RWASA2 biotype out-performed RWASA1 in each case. Under elevated [CO2], aphid feeding, resulted in a significant increase in the leaf C:N ratios (as a percentage change) in most treatments, compared to levels recorded on uninfested plants. The resistant lines also showed a significant reduction in leaf nitrogen (~ 40% for PUMA and not less than 30% for the resistant STARS lines tested). C:N ratio changes and N loss correlated to [CO2] and aphid biotype. By 28 days of infestation, most of the non-resistant PUMA line in particular showed significant irrecoverable levels of leaf chlorosis. At level 9 rating on the chlorosis scale (i.e. plant death when recovery was not possible), experiments were terminated. As aphid success is unlikely to be the sole product of [CO2], but also of other limiting nutrients such as N, it may be worth further investigating the effect of plant quality and ultimately plant nutrition on the population growth of aphids.

► Elevated CO2 accelerates plant growth.
► Elevated CO2 accelerates aphid population growth.
► Increased plant growth is negated by higher aphid populations.
► Leaf C/N ratios impacted negatively.
► Plant death enhanced by 28 days post infestation.