A Method to Measure the Damage Caused by Cell-Sucking Herbivores

André F Mira; Luís Marques; Sara Magalhães; Leonor R Rodrigues

doi:10.1007/978-1-0716-2297-1_21

A Method to Measure the Damage Caused by Cell-Sucking Herbivores

Methods Mol Biol. 2022:2494:299-312. doi: 10.1007/978-1-0716-2297-1_21.

Authors

André F Mira¹, Luís Marques^{1

2}, Sara Magalhães¹, Leonor R Rodrigues³

Affiliations

¹ Centre for Ecology, Evolution and Environmental Changes, Faculty of Sciences, University of Lisbon, Lisbon, Portugal.
² Biosystems & Integrative Sciences Institute, Faculty of Sciences, University of Lisbon, Lisbon, Portugal.
³ Centre for Ecology, Evolution and Environmental Changes, Faculty of Sciences, University of Lisbon, Lisbon, Portugal. alrodrigues@fc.ul.pt.

PMID: 35467216
DOI: 10.1007/978-1-0716-2297-1_21

Abstract

The damage that herbivores inflict on plants is a key component of their interaction. Several methods have been proposed to quantify the damage caused by chewing insects, but such methods are not very successful when the damage is inflicted by a cell-sucking organism. Here, we present a protocol that allows a non-destructive quantification of the damage inflicted by cell-sucking arthropods, robustly filtering out leaf vascular structures that might be mistakenly classified as damage in many plant species. The protocol is set for the laboratory environment and uses Fiji and ilastik, two free software packages.

Keywords: Arthropods; Fiji; Herbivory; Plant-herbivore interactions; Spider mites; Tetranychidae; ilastik.

Publication types

Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

Animals
Arthropods*
Herbivory*
Insecta
Plant Leaves
Plants