Counting marmots…
Changing phenological cues can lead to trophic mismatch for plants and herbivores, and this often shifts herbivore feeding to plant stages of lower quality. Temperature can also mediate how herbivores respond to plant quality, leading to temperature-by-phenology interactions. We examined how both temperature and host plant phenology impact aphid abundance and their mutualism with ants. Our study system was composed of aphids (Aphis asclepiadis) that colonize flowering stalks of the host plant, Ligusticum porteri. Abundance of this aphid species is dependent on mutualism with several ant species. To understand how host plant phenology and temperature affect aphid abundance, we experimentally accelerated snow melt date by two weeks, which correspondingly advanced flowering phenology. Then, we factorially combined this phenology treatment with open top warming chambers surrounding aphid colonies. We tracked aphid colony growth and interactions with ants, and results showed the greatest colony growth at cooler, ambient temperatures on host plants without accelerated phenology. These colonies also showed the highest levels of honeydew deposition relative to their overall size. Our findings show that trophic mismatch decreases aphid abundance, and changes to the ant-aphid mutualism exacerbate this effect.
Knowledge graph centered on Plant phenology, aphid colony growth, and honeydew with 16 nodes and 81 connections. Top connected: Ligusticum porteri, phenological mismatch, climate change, mutualistic relationships, precipitation.
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