Thrips-plant-interactions: Evolution of host selection, feeding and mating behavior
Terry I
University of Utah, Department of Biology, Salt Lake City, Utah 84112 USA.
Correspondence: terry@biology.utah.edu
A review of thrips-plant interactions reveals that thrips occupy many of the feeding niches available to them on plants, and that in an evolutionary sense, thrips have been very opportunistic. From their early beginnings as likely fungal feeders in dtritus, thrips have diversified onto numerous plant groups as plants have evolved from non-seed bearing plants to the most advanced plant taxa. The major trends in thrips evolution and plant evolution will be reviewed in a phylogenetic context. The selection process by which thrips choose sites for feeding, mating and brood development is also very diverse, with some thrips species being highly specialized on specific hosts, to others that are archetypal generalists. A few case studies will be used as examples to demonstrate this diversity between thrips species specializing on a single host plant species or genus and those that feed, mate and breed on a wide array of plant species and families, and what is known about cues that these thrips use to select their host plants.
