Vines avoid coiling around neighbouring plants infested by polyphagous mites

• Published in: Scientific reports 2019-04, Vol.9 (1), p.6589-6589, Article 6589
• Main Authors: Nakai, Tomoya, Yano, Shuichi
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: 631/158/2456; 631/158/856; Allelochemicals; Animal behavior; Animals; Experiments; Flowers & plants; Humanities and Social Sciences; Ipomoea nil; Ipomoea nil - growth & development; Ipomoea nil - parasitology; Laboratories; Mite Infestations - parasitology; Mites; multidisciplinary; Phaseolus - growth & development; Phaseolus - parasitology; Phaseolus vulgaris; Predatory Behavior - physiology; Science; Science (multidisciplinary); Tetranychidae - pathogenicity; Vines; Vitaceae - growth & development; Vitaceae - parasitology; Volatiles; Webs
• ISSN: 2045-2322; 2045-2322
• DOI: 10.1038/s41598-019-43101-0

Vines that coil around plants heavily infested with ambulate polyphagous mites can be heavily damaged by the mites. To explore whether vines avoid mite-infested plants, we observed the coiling responses of morning glory ( Ipomoea nil var. Heavenly Blue) vines and bush killer ( Cayratia japonica (Thunb) Gagnep) tendrils around nearby kidney bean ( Phaseolus vulgaris L.) plants that were either uninfested or heavily infested with the two-spotted spider mite ( Tetranychus urticae Koch). The proportions of I . nil vines that coiled around spider mite-infested and uninfested bean plants did not differ significantly; however, no C . japonica tendril coiled around spider mite-infested plants. The proportion of such tendrils was thus significantly lower than that around uninfested plants. The ability of C . japonica tendrils to avoid spider mite-infested plants would prevent serious “contact infections” by mites. We further found that tendril avoidance seemed to be attributable to the mite webs that covered infested plants; neither spider mite-induced bean volatiles nor spider mite intrusion onto tendrils seemed to explain the avoidance.