Fitness trade-off in peach-potato aphids (Myzus persicae) between insecticide resistance and vulnerability to parasitoid attack at several spatial scales.

Insecticide-resistant clones of the peach-potato aphid, Myzus persicae (Sulzer), have previously been shown to have a reduced response to aphid alarm pheromone compared to susceptible ones. The resulting vulnerability of susceptible and resistant aphids to attack by the primary endoparasitoid, Diaeretiella rapae (McIntosh), was investigated across three spatial scales. These scales ranged from aphids confined on individual leaves exposed to single female parasitoids, to aphids on groups of whole plants exposed to several parasitoids. In all experiments, significantly fewer aphids from insecticide-susceptible clones became parasitised compared to insecticide-resistant aphids. Investigations of aphid movement showed at the largest spatial scale that more susceptible aphids than resistant aphids moved from their inoculation leaves to other leaves on the same plant after exposure to parasitoids. The findings imply that parasitoids, and possibly other natural enemies, can influence the evolution and dynamics of insecticide resistance through pleiotropic effects of resistance genes on important behavioural traits.