Surovy, M. Z. | bioRxiv Science

bioRxiv2026

Metabolic trade-offs in sugar beet under drought and beet leaf miner infestation: implications for herbivore success

Increasing frequency of drought under climate change threatens crop production and intensifies pest pressures, yet the interactive effects of drought and herbivory on plant metabolism and ecological outcomes remain incompletely understood. We subjected sugar beet (Beta vulgaris) plants to moderate and high drought, alone or with infestation by the beet leaf miner (Pegomya cunicularia), and analyzed plant physiology, central metabolites, and volatile organic compound (VOC) emissions. Drought alone reduced growth and photosynthetic efficiency, while combined stress led to accentuated metabolic reprogramming, including increased amino acids and organic acids, and a concurrent suppression and alteration of VOC emissions, especially in plants affected by high drought and leaf mining. The resulting changes in VOC blends reduced plant attractiveness to ovipositing females, leading to fewer eggs laid on severely stressed plants. Contrastingly, moderate drought generated a nutrient-rich environment: larvae feeding on these plants exhibited the highest growth rates, larger pupae and adults, and increased feeding damage. High drought strongly limited both plant water content and larval development. These findings reveal a stress-dependent tradeoff between enhanced leaf nutritional quality and reduced host detectability, underscoring the importance of integrating multi-stress plant biology for future pest management and crop resilience. HighlightCombined drought and herbivory in sugar beet plant triggered stress-intensity-dependent trade-offs between leaf nutritional quality and volatile emissions, affecting beet leaf miner performance and oviposition--highlighting how multi-stress interactions shape plant-insect dynamics. O_FIG O_LINKSMALLFIG WIDTH=200 HEIGHT=111 SRC="FIGDIR/small/708914v1_ufig1.gif" ALT="Figure 1"> View larger version (28K): org.highwire.dtl.DTLVardef@1d92105org.highwire.dtl.DTLVardef@70693org.highwire.dtl.DTLVardef@140dc82org.highwire.dtl.DTLVardef@14cf411_HPS_FORMAT_FIGEXP M_FIG Graphical Abstract C_FIG

plant biology↗

bioRxiv2018

The MoT3 assay does not distinguish between Magnaporthe oryzae wheat and rice blast isolates from Bangladesh

The blast fungus Magnaporthe oryzae is comprised of lineages that exhibit varying degrees of specificity on about 50 grass hosts, including rice, wheat and barley. Reliable diagnostic tools are essential given that the pathogen has a propensity to jump to new hosts and spread to new geographic regions. Of particular concern is wheat blast, which has suddenly appeared in Bangladesh in 2016 before spreading to neighboring India. In these Asian countries, wheat blast strains are now co-occurring with the destructive rice blast pathogen raising the possibility of genetic exchange between these destructive pathogens. We assessed the recently described MoT3 diagnostic assay and found that it did not distinguish between wheat and rice blast isolates from Bangladesh. The assay is based on primers matching the WB12 sequence corresponding to a fragment of the M. oryzae MGG_02337 gene annotated as a short chain dehydrogenase. These primers could not reliably distinguish between wheat and rice blast isolates from Bangladesh based on DNA amplification experiments performed in separate laboratories in Bangladesh and in the UK. In addition, comparative genomics of the WB12 sequence revealed a complex underlying genetic structure with related sequences across M. oryzae strains and in both rice and wheat blast isolates. We, therefore, caution against the indiscriminate use of this assay to identify wheat blast.

plant biology↗