Following my last post I went looking for Knopper galls on the oaks near the Old Manse here on Raasay but as usual there were no acorns – so no galls (and yes, I know these are caused by a gall wasp not a moth) However, in the beech hedge there was a green-island leaf mine:
Phyllonorycter maestingella on Fagus sylvatica
I was interested to see that the green-island effect induced by leaf-miners is mediated by bacterial symbionts, at least in the closely related Phyllonorycter blancardella: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20356892
“Curing leaf-miners of their symbiotic partner resulted in the absence of green-island formation on leaves, increased compensatory larval feeding and higher insect mortality. Our results suggest that bacteria impact green-island induction through manipulation of cytokinin levels.”
On another note, the 1952 paper referred to in the last post does not appear to have any micromoths in it.
Tags: Moths
Plants of Skye, Raasay & The Small Isles 
November 8, 2018 at 4:50 pm |
Wow! That’s really interesting. But how did they get the caterpillars to take the antibiotics???
November 8, 2018 at 4:54 pm |
“Emerging females were kept with males for 3 days in Petri dishes containing either 40 per cent glucose solution, or 1 per cent antibiotic and 40 per cent glucose solution………”
See https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2894905/
November 8, 2018 at 4:59 pm |
This one continues the story: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26442762. “we studied the co-occurrence between Wolbachia and the green-island phenotype in 133 moth specimens belonging to 74 species of Lepidoptera including 60 Gracillariidae leaf miners. Using a combination of molecular phylogenies and ecological data (occurrence of green-islands), we show that the acquisitions of the green-island phenotype and Wolbachia infections have been associated through the evolutionary diversification of Gracillariidae. We also found intraspecific variability in both green-island formation and Wolbachia infection, with some species being able to form green-islands without being infected by Wolbachia.”