Data from: Temperature-dependent, behavioral, and transcriptional variability of a tritrophic interaction consisting of bean, herbivorous mite, and predator

Different organisms compensate for, and adapt to, environmental changes in different ways and therefore environmental changes affect animal–plant interactions. We consequently assessed the effect of temperature on a tritrophic system of the lima bean, the spider mite Tetranychus urticae, and the predatory mite Phytoseiulus persimilis. In this system the plant defends itself against T. urticae by emitting volatiles that attract P. persimilis. Over a range of 20 40°C the emission of volatiles by infested plants and the attraction of P. persimilis, peaked at 30°C but the number of eggs laid by T. urticae adults and the number of eggs consumed by P. persimilis, peaked at 35°C. This indicates that the spider mites and predatory mites performed best at a higher temperature than that at which most volatile attractants were produced. We used data from transcriptome pyrosequencing of the mites and found that P. persimilis up-regulated gene families for heat shock proteins (HSPs) and ubiquitin-associated proteins, whereas T. urticae did not. RNA interference-mediated gene suppression in P. persimilis, developed in the current study, revealed that predation on T. urticae eggs by P. persimilis fed with PpHsp70-1 dsRNA was reduced at 35°C, when the expression level of PpHsp70-1 was greatly increased but not at 25°C. Overall, our molecular and behavioral approaches revealed that the mode and tolerance of lima bean, T. urticae, and the predatory mite P. persimilis are distinctly affected by temperature variability, thereby making their tritrophic interactions temperature dependent.

不同生物对环境变化的补偿与适应方式各不相同，因此环境变化会对动植物间的相互作用产生影响。为此，我们针对涵盖利马豆（lima bean）、二斑叶螨（Tetranychus urticae）以及智利小植绥螨（Phytoseiulus persimilis）的三营养级系统，评估了温度的作用效应。该系统中，植物通过释放挥发性化合物吸引智利小植绥螨，以此抵御二斑叶螨的侵染。在20℃至40℃的温度区间内，受螨类侵染的利马豆释放的挥发性物质总量，以及智利小植绥螨的趋性响应均在30℃时达到峰值；而二斑叶螨成虫的产卵量与智利小植绥螨的取食卵量则在35℃时达到峰值。这一结果表明，相较于多数挥发性引诱剂的最佳合成温度，叶螨与捕食螨的适宜生存温度更高。我们利用了针对螨类的转录组焦磷酸测序（transcriptome pyrosequencing）数据，发现智利小植绥螨会上调热休克蛋白（heat shock proteins, HSPs）与泛素相关蛋白的基因家族表达水平，而二斑叶螨则未出现该现象。本研究开发的RNA干扰（RNA interference）介导的智利小植绥螨基因抑制实验显示：喂食PpHsp70-1双链RNA（dsRNA）的智利小植绥螨，当其PpHsp70-1基因的表达水平在35℃时显著上调时，该螨对二斑叶螨卵的捕食能力会出现下降，但在25℃环境下则无此效应。综合来看，我们的分子生物学与行为学研究揭示，利马豆、二斑叶螨以及智利小植绥螨的生存模式与温度耐受性均显著受温度波动影响，因此三者的三营养级相互作用具有温度依赖性。