Biology subjects

Rebaudo, F.

Publications and source records attributed to Rebaudo, F..

2 recordsLinked to original sources

bioRxiv2024

Effects of maize development and phenology on the field infestation dynamics of the European Corn Borer

Phenological match/mismatch between cultivated plants and their pest could impact pest infestastion dynamics in the field. To explore how such match/mismatch of plant and pest phenologies may interact with plant defense dynamics, we studied the infestation dynamics of maize by one of its main pests in Europe, the European Corn Borer (Ostrinia nubilalis; Lepidoptera: Crambidae). A two-year field experiment was carried out on a collection of 23 maize inbred lines contrasted for their earliness. Each inbred line was sown at three different dates in order to expose different developmental stages of maize to natural European corn borer infestation. The effect of the sowing date depended on the inbred line, the pest generation and the year. In 2021, the final pest incidence ranged from 36% to 91% depending on inbred lines and sowing date. In 2022, it ranged from 2% to 77%. This variability in final pest incidence can be related to variations in plant development during plant exposure to pest infestation. However, this relationship was not straightforward. Indeed, the shape and intensity of the relationship depended on the timing of the onset of the pest infestation. When infestation occurred while plants were in a vegetative stage, a non-linear relationship between development and pest incidence was observed with the least and most developed plants being the most infested. When infestation occurred when all plants were in the mature phase, the most developed plants were the least infested. Our results highlight the effect of plant-pest phenological match/mismatch on pest infestation dynamics and underline the importance of taking plant-pest interactions into account to propose relevant control strategies.

ecology↗

bioRxiv2020

Measuring ontogenetic shifts in central-place foraging insects: a case study with honey bees

O_LIMeasuring time-activity budgets over the complete individual lifespan is now possible for many animals with the recent advances of life-long individual monitoring devices. Although analyses of changes in the patterns of time-activity budgets have revealed ontogenetic shifts in birds or mammals, no such technique has been applied to date on insects. C_LIO_LIWe tested an automated breakpoint-based procedure to detect, assess and quantify shifts in the temporal pattern of the flight activities in honey bees. We assumed that the learning and foraging stages of honey bees will differ in several respects, to detect the age at onset of foraging (AOF). C_LIO_LIUsing an extensive dataset covering the life-long monitoring of 2,100 individuals, we compared the AOF outputs with the more conventional approaches based on arbitrary thresholds. We further evaluated the robustness of the different methods comparing the foraging time-activity budget allocations between the presumed foragers and confirmed foragers. C_LIO_LIWe revealed a clear-cut learning-foraging ontogenetic shift that differs in duration, frequency, and time of occurrence of flights. Although AOF appeared to be highly plastic among bees, the breakpoint-based procedure seems better able to detect it than arbitrary threshold-based methods that are unable to deal with inter-individual variation. C_LIO_LIWe developed the aof R-package including a broad range of examples with both simulated and empirical dataset to illustrate the simplicity of use of the procedure. This simple procedure is generic enough to be derived from any individual life-long monitoring devices recording the time-activity budgets of honey bees, and could propose new ecological applications of bio-logging to detect ontogenetic shifts in the behaviour of central-place foraging insects. C_LI

ecology↗