Data from:Insight into the durability of plant resistance to aphids from a demo-genetic study of Aphis gossypii in melon crops

Resistance breakdown has been observed following the deployment of plant
cultivars resistant to pests. Assessing the durability of a resistance
requires long-term experiments at least at a regional scale. We collected
such data for melon resistance conferred by the Vat gene cluster to melon
aphids. We examined landscape-level populations of Aphis gossypii
collected in 2004–2015, from melon-producing regions with and without the
deployment of Vat resistance and with different climates. We conducted
demo-genetic analyses of the aphid populations on Vat and non-Vat plants
during the cropping seasons. The Vat resistance decreased the density of
aphid populations in all areas and changed the genetic structure and
composition of these populations. Two bottlenecks were identified in the
dynamics of adapted clones, due to the low levels of production of
dispersal morphs and winter extinction. Our results suggest that (i) Vat
resistance will not be durable in the Lesser Antilles, where no bottleneck
affected the dynamics of adapted clones, (ii) Vat resistance will be
durable in south-west France, where both bottlenecks affected the dynamics
of adapted clones and (iii) Vat resistance will be less durable in
south-east France, where only one of the two bottlenecks was observed.