P-611 - The Effects of Cucumber Mosaic Virus Infection on Interactions of Arabidopsis thaliana with Specialist and Non-Specialist Aphids

Cucumber mosaic virus (CMV) is an agriculturally important plant virus that is transmitted by aphids. CMV infection alters host plant phenotypes, potentially influencing aphid behaviour to enhance viral transmission. Thus, understanding CMV-aphid-plant interactions could be useful for the improvement of sustainable management of CMV and other aphid-transmitted viruses. This study examined how CMV-induced plant phenotypes affect the settling behaviour and volatile blend preferences of the specialist aphids Lipaphis erysimi and Brevicoryne brassicae compared to the generalist aphid Myzus persicae. Free-choice settling assays evaluated aphid settling preferences for CMV-infected versus uninfected Arabidopsis thaliana plants. At 24 hours post-release, all three species preferred to settle on uninfected plants, indicating that CMV-infected plants deter settlement. However, in olfactometry assays, which assessed aphid volatile preference between infected and uninfected plants, M. persicae preferred volatile blends from CMV-infected plants whereas specialist aphids showed no preference. Aphids of all three species made fewer choices when only the volatiles of mock-inoculated plants were present. These findings revealed that CMV can modify interactions of A. thaliana plants with generalist and specialist aphids but to different degrees. CMV-induced changes in the host most effectively modifies the behaviour of the generalist M. persicae in ways that might optimise its onward transmission.