Hemipteroid orders Flashcards
what are the Hemipteroid orders
- Phthiraptera – lice
- Tysanoptera – thrips
- Hemiptera – bugs (huge order)
hemipteroid orders - what do they all have in common
- Hemimetabolous (no pupa)
- All have piercing sucking mouthparts
hemipteroid - piercing sicking mouthparts
- Spit digestive enzymes, wait for food to get soft, then suck it up
- there are three broad uses
- there are three independent evolutions of human blood feeding in the Hemipteroids
hemipteroid orders - uses for the piercing sucking mouthparts
- Suck plant fluids (sap)
- Attack prey, suck out nutrition
- Suck blood
hemipteroid: piercing sucking mouthparts - which organisms show independent evolutions of human blood feeding
- Pthiraptera
- Triatomes (Reduviidae, Hemiptera)
- Cimicidae (Hemiptera)
Phthiraptera
- Lice
- All parasitic on veterbrates
- Wingless
- Piercing mouthparts for sucking blood from mammals (even marine mammals)
- Claws adapted to grasp hair; eggs cemented to hair (‘nits’)
- Most mammals have species specific lice parasites
phthiraptera - what species of lice do humans have?
- Head
- Pubic (‘Crabs’)
- Body (only one that is a disease vector)
phthiraptera: human lice - why are body lice disease vectors
their piercing mouthparts spit saliva that transmits disease from someone else that had typhus
Hemiptera
- true bugs
- Name means “half wing”
- Forewings of suborder Heteroptera have a base that is thick and leathery and a distal end that is membranous
Hemiptera - key features of Hemipteran biology
- All-fluid diet ingested through piercing-sucking mouthparts
- Two canals: deliver saliva in, suck food out
Reduciidae
- assassin bug
- Predators of other arthropods
- Exception: Triatominae subfamily feeds on blood
- Some species transmit Chagas disease in tropics
Reduciidae - how can they use their mouthparts
- predatory (pierce, externally digest and suck prey)
- Phytophagous (pierce plant, suck sap)
- Parasitic (pierce skin, suck blood)
Gerridae
- water striders
- elongated body
- Long legs
- Predators of insects on water surface
Gerridae - how do they move on the water
- Hydrophobic hairs on front and rear legs let them ride surface tension
- Use middle legs like oars to move
Pentatomidae
- stink bugs
- Stinky cyanide-based defensive fluid (but other Hemiptera families have it too)
- Characteristic shape, prominent scutellum (not on similar shield bugs)
- Most are plant feeders
Cimicidae
- bed bugs
- Suck blood from mammals and birds
- Wingless
- Don’t transmit disease to humans
- Transferred typically through furniture
- Can live >year w/o food – resistant to starvation
Cicadidae
- cicadas
- Annual come out every year (but take >1 year to develop)
- Loud species-specific song
- Periodic cicadas (genus Magicicada): 13- and 17-year cycles
- they swamp their predators
cicadidae - how do they swamp their predators
- Predators take advantage of the swarm and eat them.
- predators then get full and the cicadas that survive can reproduce
cicadidae - explain mating and reproduction behavior
- Brood feed on plant roots, then mass emergence to mate
- then they oviposit in branch
- after, nymphs drop to soil, burrow, feed on roots
What is the similarities between mayflies and cicadas and why are locusts different
- Mayflies and cicadas : Coming out for a brief time and coordinate their mating bc they both live short lives. Some extent overwhelms predators
- Locusts: Swarming bc they overeaten their food source
Aphidae
- aphids
- Winged and wingless, sexual and parthogenetic (developmental plasticity)
- Can damage plant through feeding
- Distinguished by cornicles
- Produces honeydew as a sugary excrement
- mutualism with ants
Aphidae - explain the mutualism with ants
- aphids are tended by ants for honeydew
- ants protect aphids form predators, in return they get honeydew
Problems associated with feeding on sap
- Too much water and sugar (“dinking from a fire hose”). Honeydew excretion = sugar water
- Not enough other nutrients (also applies to blood feeders, except for sugar part)
solutions to problems associated with feeding on sap
- Filter chamber: get sugar and water out of gut quickly and in large quantities to focus on micro-nutrients
- Symbiotic micro-organisms: house microbe factories to produce what you want
solutions to sap feeding - filter chamber
- they filter out most water and sugar in “first pass”
- Let rest go through the full digestive tract
- Can concentrate other nutrients up to 10x
solutions to sap feeding - symbiotic micro-organisms example
Aphids and the bacterial symbiont Buchnera
solutions to sap feeding: symbiotic micro-organisms example - Aphids and Buchnera
- aphids rely on bacteria metabolism for essential amino acids
- Bunchnera rely on aphids for place to live (aphids have special folds in gut tissue for them)
- Bunchnera maternally transfers in eggs of aphids; co-speciation of host and symbiont
symbiotic micro-organisms example: Aphids and Buchnera - Experimental evidence
- treat aphids with antibiotic, they will not die immediately but cannot continue growing and molting
- Unless they are supplemented with amino acids
