Chen, Chen ¹ ; Pan, Wei² ; Tong, Xiaoqian³ ; Song, Jing⁴ ; Pan, Yang⁵ and Zhou, Peng ⁶

¹School of Life Sciences, Anqing Normal University, Anqing 246133, China.
²School of Life Sciences, Anqing Normal University, Anqing 246133, China.
³School of Life Sciences, Anhui University, Hefei 230031, China.
⁴School of Life Sciences, Anqing Normal University, Anqing 246133, China.
⁵School of Life Sciences, Anqing Normal University, Anqing 246133, China.
⁶✉ School of Life Sciences, Anqing Normal University, Anqing 246133, China.

2025 - Volume: 65 Issue: 1 pages: 197-203

Original research

Keywords

Abstract

Introduction

Investigations into how host plants affect life history characteristics of pest herbivores help better understand their abundance and distribution, the knowledge of which is important for pest forecast and integrated pest management programs (Santamaría et al. 2018). Host plants vary in chemical traits such as toxins, nutritional quality and quantity, and physical traits such as tissue toughness, which affect development, reproduction, survival and population growth of herbivores (de Lima et al. 2017; Golizadeh et al. 2017; Santamaría et al. 2018; Puspitarini et al. 2021; Segura-Martínez et al. 2023).

Many spider mites in the family Tetranychidae (Acari: Prostigmata) are highly polyphagous pests worldwide. Studies have shown that different host plants affect development, reproduction and demographic parameters of spider mites such as Tetranychus urticae Koch, T. evansi Baker & Pritchard (Santamaría et al. 2018), T. ludeni Zacher (Adango et al. 2006), and T. phaselus Ehara (Ito et al. 2017). Tetranychus phaselus is a polyphagous pest distributed in China, Russia, Japan, and Korea, which is currently considered as a minor pest (Ehara, 1960; Zhao et al. 2013; Gotoh et al. 2015; Jin et al. 2018). It has been recorded to appear on at least 16 host plants including Gossypium spp. (Malvales: Malvaceae), Humulus lupulus L. (Rosales: Cannabaceae), Fatoua villosa (Thunb.) Nakai (Rosales: Moraceae) (Jin et al. 2018; Migeon and Dorkeld 2024), among which the soybeans Glycine max Merr. (Fabales: Fabaceae) and the common beans Phaseolus vulgaris L. (Fabales: Fabaceae) are two most economically important crops cultivated worldwide. Glycine max and P. vulgaris belong to Fabaceae, which are considered favorable host plants of many Tetranychus mites (van den Boom et al. 2003; Ito et al. 2017; Segura-Martínez et al. 2023; Weerawansha et al. 2023; Zhou et al. 2024). Glycine max has more nutritional components such as protein than P. vulgaris (Alcázar-Valle et al. 2020; Li et al. 2024) and may be a more suitable host plant for T. phaselus.

The increasing planting area of host plants may alter species composition and facilitate occurrence of particular pests (Jin et al. 2018). Due to its nutritional and health benefits, there is an increase of demand and cultivation of Fabaceae beans (FAO 2025). For example, the planting area of soybean increased from 6.8 million hectares in 2015 to 10 million hectares in 2022 in mainland China (NBSC 2025), and there is a steady increase of planting area of common beans in temperate countries including China (Wu et al. 2020), which may facilitate the occurrence of T. phaselus. Numerous studies used common bean plants as host species to test the performance of spider mites, for example, Gotoh et al. (2015) tested the fitness of four mites on P. vulgaris in response to different temperatures. However, the performances of many spider mites including T. phaselus on soybean plants are not clear. It is also not clear whether T. phaselus performs better on soybean than on common bean. Here we investigated development, reproduction, survival and life table parameters of T. phaselus on G. max and P. vulgaris and how these traits vary between the two plants. Knowledge generated could contribute to pest forecast and integrated pest management programs for controlling this mite in soybean and common bean growing regions.

Material and methods

Mite colony and experimental conditions

Tetranychus phaselus adults were collected on Morus alba L. in Anqing, Anhui province, China, and the colony was established and maintained using 3- to 5-week-old common bean P. vulgaris plants grown in pots. Phaseolus vulgaris and G. max seeds were purchased from local market and were grown in pots. The first expanded leaves cut from 1- to 2-week-old plants were used for experiments. The colony was maintained and the experiments were carried out under the environmental conditions of 24 ± 1 °C, 60 ± 10% RH, and 14:10 h (light:dark) photoperiod in a walk-in climate chamber.

Immature development

Forty adult females were randomly selected from the colony and placed on a P. vulgaris leaf square (3 × 3 cm). Females were allowed to lay eggs for eight hours and then removed from the leaf square. The eggs were individually transferred onto either a P. vulgaris or a G. max leaf circle (1 cm in diameter) using a fine brush. Only data of diploid eggs were collected in this procedure. In spider mites, mated mothers produce haploid (giving rise to sons) and diploid eggs (developing to daughters) whereas virgin mothers produce haploid eggs only. Mated females usually produce female-biased sex ratios (e.g., 3:1). To reduce workload, virgin females were used for producing haploid eggs. Fifty female deutonymphs were randomly selected, placed on a P. vulgaris leaf square (3 × 3 cm) and allowed to develop into 3-d-old adults. Forty adult virgin females were randomly selected and transferred onto a new leaf square and allowed to lay eggs for eight hours. The adults were then removed and each of the eggs was transferred onto either a P. vulgaris or a G. max leaf circle (1 cm in diameter) using a fine brush. The individuals were checked every 24 hours, and the developmental period of eggs, larvae, protonymphs, deutonymphs of males and females were recorded. A total of 60 replicates, i.e., 30 (15 males and 15 females) replicates for each host plant were obtained.

Reproduction, longevity, and offspring survival

Male and female deutonymphs were randomly selected from the colony and each individual was placed on a leaf circle (1.5 cm in diameter) to develop into 1-d-old adults. To obtain mated females, a female and a male were paired on a new leaf circle for 24 hours and then the male was removed. The mating status of a female was checked by examining whether she produced at least a daughter, and only mated females were used for experiment. A new leaf circle was replaced for the female every 24 hours until the female died. The number of eggs laid on each leaf circle was recorded and the eggs were allowed to develop into adults. The number of eggs hatched, the number of offspring that developed into adults, sex ratio, female oviposition period and female longevity were also recorded. Seventeen and 18 replicates were prepared for G. max and P. vulgaris, respectively.

Statistical analysis

All data were analyzed using SAS software (SAS 9.4, SAS Institute Inc., NC, USA). Data distribution was tested using Shapiro-Wilk test (UNIVARIATE Procedure). Data on the male total developmental period (egg to adult) were normally distributed and analyzed using the Student's t-test (TTEST Procedure). Other data were not normally distributed and analyzed using the nonparametric Wilcoxon signed-rank test (NPAR1WAY Procedure). A Gaussian functional model according to Archontoulis and Miguez (2015): \(y=a e^{\left(-0.5\left[\ln \left(x / x_0\right) / b\right]^2\right)}\) was used to fit the daily number of eggs and daughters for each treatment, where x is the age of females (days), a is the peak at time x₀ (female age), b is the coefficient controlling the width of the peak. The model allowed us to compare reproduction patterns between treatments. If the 95% confidence limits of a given parameter overlap, then there is no significant difference between treatments.

The life table parameters including the intrinsic rate of increase, the net reproductive rate, mean generation time, and doubling time were calculated. The life table parameters (Jervis et al. 2005) were calculated using the data on daily survival and daughter production of each female. The intrinsic rate of natural increase (r) was calculated by solving the Lotka-Euler equation: \(\sum e^{-r x} l_x m_x=1\), where x is the pivotal age, l_x is the proportion of females surviving to age x, and m_x is the number of daughters produced per female at age x. The net reproductive rate (\(R_0=\sum l_x m_x\), daughters/female/generation), doubling time [\(D_t=\log _e(2) / r\), days], and generation time [\(T=\log _e\left(R_0\right) / r\), days] were also calculated. The bootstrap method with 50,000 bootstrap samples was used to calculate the pseudo-values of a given parameter and the paired-bootstrap test was employed to compare between two treatments (TTEST Procedure).

Results and discussion

Our results show that T. phaselus performed differently on G. max and P. vulgaris in terms of the development time, reproduction and life-table parameters. Host plants have had a strong influence on the biological parameters of several species of tetranychids (de Lima et al. 2017; Golizadeh et al. 2017; Santamaría et al. 2018; Puspitarini et al. 2021; Segura-Martínez et al. 2023). The total developmental period of T. phaselus from egg to adult was significantly shorter on G. max than on P. vulgaris for both males and females. In spider mites, the male has a shorter immature stage than the female. Additionally, males typically stop growing after the protonymphal stage and are smaller than females upon emergence as adults (Li and Zhang 2018). These differences may result in divergent nutritional demands across developmental stages between males and females. Our results show that females on G. max had significantly shorter developmental period at deutonymph stage, whereas males had significantly shorter developmental period at the larva and protonymph stage (Table 1). Similarly, different growth rates on different host plant between males and females was also found in the red spider mite T. merganser Boudreaux (Segura-Martínez et al. 2023). Our results show that T. phaselus had significantly higher egg-to-adult survival on G. max than on P. vulgaris (Table 2). Specifically, egg hatchability was significantly higher on G. max than on P. vulgaris but larva-to-adult survival was similar between the two host plants indicating that egg stage is more affected by host plants (Table 2). It is widely reported that mothers of spider mites dynamically adjust their resource provisioning to offspring (e.g., egg size) in response to environmental conditions such as host plant quality variations (Dahirel et al. 2019), population density fluctuations (Weerawansha et al. 2022), and changes in mating status (Zhou et al. 2018). The differences in egg hatchability between the two bean plants may be attributed to variations in host plant quality (e.g., leaf nutrient composition) and maternal effects. Faster developmental rate may allow a shorter life cycle and faster population growth rate, and together with higher offspring survival, these features may lead to larger population size on G. max.

Tetranychus phaselus females had similar oviposition period and longevity on the two host plants but produced significantly more daily and lifetime number of eggs on G. max than on P. vulgaris (Table 2). The higher reproductive output is also illustrated in Figure 1 where the peaks of daily number of eggs and daughters produced were significantly higher and delayed when fed on G. max than those fed on P. vulgaris (Figure 1). Ito et al. (2017) reported that T. phaselus produced about 11 eggs on the favorable host plant P. vulgaris within the first five days, which is similar with present study (about 13 eggs within five days). Our results suggest that G. max is a more favorable host plant for T. phaselus, probably because it is higher in some nutritional components such as protein. Similarly, higher nitrogen content leads to faster development and higher fecundity in Panonychus ulmi (Koch) (Breukel and Post 1959), T. ludeni (Adango et al. 2006), and T. urticae (Wermelinger et al. 1991).

Life table parameters indicate the population growth rates of species in the present generation and subsequent generations and thus a reliable tool to assess the performance of phytophagous arthropods on different host plants. We show that females fed on G. max had significantly higher intrinsic rate of increase (r_m ) and net reproductive rate (Ro) and shorter generation time (T) and doubling time (Dt) (Table 3). The values of life table parameters (r_m , Ro, T, and Dt) obtained from the two host plants in our study fell within the ranges documented for Tetranychus species in the literature (Kasap 2004; Adango et al. 2006; Sedaratian et al. 2011; Golizadeh et al. 2017; Zhou et al. 2021; de Lima et al. 2022; Ristyadi et al. 2022; Segura-Martínez et al. 2023). The higher r_m on soybean may due to higher reproductive rate (Figure 1) and shorter generation time (Golizadeh et al. 2017; Osman et al. 2019), which is suggested to be the most appropriate index to evaluate the performance of pests on host plants (Golizadeh et al. 2017). These results further suggest that G. max is more susceptive to T. phaselus attack than P. vulgaris. Life table parameters can reflect the occurrence of pests on host plants in the field (Adango et al. 2006; de Lima et al. 2017), and thus provide essential information for forecasting and developing pest management strategies (Sedaratian et al. 2011; Segura-Martínez et al. 2023).

In summary, we show that T. phaselus had shorter developmental period, higher egg-to-adult survival and produced more daily and lifetime number of eggs on G. max than on P. vulgaris. Furthermore, females fed on G. max had significantly higher intrinsic rate of increase (r_m ) and net reproductive rate (Ro) and shorter generation time (T) and doubling time (Dt). These results suggest that G. max is more susceptive to T. phaselus attack. Considering that G. max and P. vulgaris are favorable host plants for T. phaselus, the increasing planting area of these beans particularly soybeans may facilitate the occurrence of T. phaselus.

Acknowledgments

We thank Professor Tian-Ci Yi for identification of this spider mite to species. We also thank two anonymous reviewers and the editor, Dr. Dejan Marčić, for their constructive comments and suggestions, which have significantly improved the paper. The work reported here was supported by the Key Scientific Research Programs of Universities in Anhui Province (2022AH051052; 2024AH051125; 2024AH051080; 2024AH040170), and the Provincial Graduate Education Quality Engineering Project of Anhui Province (2023zybj021; 2024yjshhsfkc040).

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