Rising temperatures affect the interspecific interference competition between Harmonia axyridis and Propylea japonica, and their predation rate on Myzus persicae

Yu, Xing‐Lin; Zhang, Yujie; Zuo, Jun-Feng; Luo, Xiangfeng; Zhang, Long; Danzeng, Zhuo-Ma; Wang, Bo; Xia, Peng-Liang; Zhang, Shize; Liu, Tong‐Xian; Feng, Yi

doi:10.1007/s10340-022-01519-y

Cited by 7 publications

(1 citation statement)

References 78 publications

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“…Beyond faster metabolism and ladybird mobility, another possible reason explaining that an increased predation of H. axyridis remained undetected on aphid population densities may be the potential for increased interference competition with other ladybird species as well as with other predatory functional groups such as spiders and ground beetles. Increased temperatures make H. axyridis and its competing species more active, which increase the frequency of interference interactions, notably with Propylea japonica (Thunberg), another ubiquitous ladybird species in wheat fields (Yu et al., 2023). Intraguild predation between these species may have also increased under warming, although this may be modulated by prey density availability (Mirande et al., 2015; Rocca et al., 2017; Soares et al., 2003).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Increased ladybird predation and metabolism do not counterbalance increased field aphid population growth under experimental warming

Wang,

Jaworski,

et al. 2024

Functional Ecology

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Climate change may have diverse and complex impacts on species interactions, destabilizing food webs and ecosystem services. The effects of warming on the top‐down biological control of crop pests have been considerably less studied than bottom‐up effects through crop physiological changes. We studied the effect of a 2°C warming in the laboratory and in wheat fields on the predation and metabolism of Harmonia axyridis on wheat aphids using molecular gut content analysis. We also measured the effects of warming on the predation rate and functional response of H. axyridis on each aphid species in the laboratory, as well as on DNA degradation rate. Field densities of Sitobion avenae and Rhopalosiphum padi, the two most abundant wheat aphid species, were increased by 2 and 2.5 times, respectively, under experimental warming, but densities of H. axyridis were not. Field predation rate of H. axyridis on these two aphid was found to be about 25% lower under elevated temperature. This could have been due to faster prey digestion, since degradation of the preferred aphid species, Sitobion avenae, was 1.5 times faster under elevated temperature. However, the functional response of H. axyridis larvae on these two species was 1.5 times higher under warming over the range of prey densities tested (50–250 over 24 h). The total predation rate of H. axyridis larvae on a mixture of S. avenae, R. padi and Schizaphis graminum aphid prey was also increased by 1.4 times, but consumption of R. padi aphids was increased while that of S. graminum was decreased under warming. Overall, our results show that global warming could strongly increase pest outbreaks and destabilize biological pest control, which would likely result in accrued yield losses. Read the free Plain Language Summary for this article on the Journal blog.

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