Water stress decreases the biocontrol efficacy of a nucleopolyhedrovirus against the fall armyworm on maize

Drought events are expected to limit crop productivity in the context of current climate change. Drought is also likely to affect multitrophic interactions such as those involving plants, phytophagous insects and their natural enemies. We designed a two-phase experiment to test the effect of water a...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published inJournal of pest science Vol. 97; no. 3; pp. 1315 - 1324
Main Authors Real-Santillán, Raúl Omar, del-Val, Ek, Williams, Trevor, Martínez-Castillo, Ana Mabel, Gavito, Mayra E., Contreras-Cornejo, Hexon Ángel, Díaz, Tsiri, García-Gómez, Griselda, Larsen, John
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Berlin/Heidelberg Springer Berlin Heidelberg 01.06.2024
Springer Nature B.V
Subjects
Agriculture
Baculoviridae
Biological control
Biomedical and Life Sciences
Climate change
Corn
Crop production
Drought
Ecology
Entomology
Fertilization
Forestry
Insects
Irrigation
Irrigation efficiency
Larvae
Life Sciences
Mineral fertilizers
Natural enemies
Original Paper
Pest control
Plant nutrition
Plant Pathology
Plant Sciences
Plant viruses
Soil testing
Soil water
Spodoptera frugiperda
Water availability
Water stress
Fertilization
Baculovirus
Drought
Online AccessGet full text

Cover

More Information
Summary:Drought events are expected to limit crop productivity in the context of current climate change. Drought is also likely to affect multitrophic interactions such as those involving plants, phytophagous insects and their natural enemies. We designed a two-phase experiment to test the effect of water availability and fertilizer treatment on the interaction between maize, the fall armyworm and its nucleopolyhedrovirus pathogen. Plants grown in soil with high irrigation and mineral fertilization had the highest shoot and root dry weight. Furthermore, plant nitrogen levels were higher in plants with fertilization and a low irrigation scheme compared to other treatments. Low irrigation of maize plants reduced virus-induced mortality of armyworm larvae. Insects did not feed on plants with high irrigation and without fertilization. We conclude that water stress and plant nutrition can affect virus performance and thereby affect the efficiency of biological control and pest management, especially as water and nutrient limitation will likely increase under climate change.
ISSN:1612-4758
1612-4766
DOI:10.1007/s10340-023-01700-x