Effect of Environment on Resistance to the European Corn Borer (Lepidoptera: Crambidae) in Maize

Abstract

The European corn borer, Ostrinia nubilalis (Hübner) (Lepidoptera: Crambidae), is a major pest of maize, Zea mays L., in many temperate parts of the world. Genotype-by-environment interaction effects can make relative performance unpredictable and may hamper selection for resistance to European corn borer. The objective of this study was to determine the effect of environment on genotypic reaction to European corn borer resistance in maize. A set of 12 maize inbred lines was chosen to represent a range of European corn borer responses. Eleven testing environments ranged from Delaware, Ohio, Illinois, Iowa, Nebraska, Missouri, to Mississippi. For length of stalk tunneling, environmental and genotypic main effects (estimated by restricted maximum likelihood) were >20- and 10-fold larger than their interaction effect, respectively. Length of tunneling means for genotypes (across environments) ranged from 10.1 to 35.4 cm. Several putatively resistant genotypes grouped with the susceptible checks, B73 and Mol7. By breaking factors and the interaction into single degree of freedom components, we observed that GEMS-0001 had significant crossover interactions toward less susceptibility in both Mississippi and the Nebraska environments. Environments displaying several crossover interactions indicated that European corn borer screening at these sites would not necessarily apply to other locations, whether due to small differences in experimental conduct and/or environmental effects. The five most resistant genotypes were fairly consistent across environments. Because all environments except Illinois used larvae from the same insectary, and these environments differed in damage intensity and rankings, it is unlikely that insect biotype was a factor contributing to genotype-by-environment effects.

Ploidy level interacts with population size and habitat conditions to determine the degree of herbivory damage in plant populations

“…Plant‐animal interactions have been shown to depend on many different environmental factors (Levine et al 1998, Veteli et al 2003, Willmot et al 2004, Kersch and Fonseca 2005, Ostergard and Ehrlén 2005) at different spatial scales (Johnson and Agrawal 2005). Since the effect of different factors on various interactions in natural communities are often not independent (Fritz 1999, de Mazancourt and Loreau 2000, Barrett and Agrawal 2004), it is expected that the effect of ploidy level on plant‐animal interactions will likewise depend on other factors known to affect relationships between plants and animals.…”

Effects of Maize Development and Phenology on the Field Infestation Dynamics of the European Corn Borer (Lepidoptera: Crambidae)

“…The inbred line in blue (F618) is known for its tolerance to ECB (Panouillá et al 1998). Inbred lines red (Mo17, B37) are known for their susceptibility to ECB (Willmot et al 2004). (a) Proportion of plants infested by the single pest generation in 2021.…”

“…This is consistent with our findings as these three inbred lines were one of the least infested in both seasons. B73 and Mo17 are known to be sensitive to ECB attacks, as shown by the length of the tunnels made by borers in several environments (Willmot et al, 2004). Mo17 displayed a variable level of resistance to tunneling depending on the environment, whereas B73 was among the most susceptible genotypes in all environments.…”

Large genetic variability of maize leaf palatability to european corn borer : metabolic insights

“…Those 13 lines were previously characterized at two developmental stages for their variability for central carbon metabolism enzymes activities, metabolites concentrations and a set of physiological traits (18). Among them, two inbred lines (B73, MO17) are already known for their sensitivity to pyralids attacks (42,70). The panel was completed with three inbred lines (F66, F271, CM494) exhibiting differences for cell wall digestibility (24, 72), and two inbred lines (F618, F918) known for their tolerance to pyralids attacks (3).…”

“…In the present study, we used a core-panel of 18 maize inbred lines chosen to represent the genetic diversity of maize varieties cultivated in Europe and North America (11), but also a range of variation for the resistance to European Corn Borer (3,70) and for cell-wall digestibility (24, 72). Most of the inbred lines from the panel were already shown to present a wide genetic diversity for a large set of physiological, enzymatic and metabolic data (18).…”