Effects of host plants on insecticide susceptibility and carboxylesterase activity in Bemisia tabaci biotype B and greenhouse whitefly, Trialeurodes vaporariorum.

Bemisia tabaci (Gennadius) biotype B and the greenhouse whitefly, Trialeurodes vaporariorum (Westwood), have become serious pests of cotton and vegetable crops in China since the early 1990s. In recent years, however, B. tabaci have broken out more frequently and widely than have T. vaporariorum. The B. tabaci biotype B has also developed higher resistance to several insecticides. Here, the effects of four different host plants on the insecticide susceptibility of B. tabaci biotype B and T. vaporariorum have been compared. The LC(50) values of imidacloprid, abamectin, deltamethrin and omethoate in T. vaporariorum reared on cucumber were significantly higher than those in B. tabaci (the LC(50) values in T. vaporariorum were respectively 3.13, 2.63, 2.78 and 6.67 times higher than those in B. tabaci). On the other hand, the B. tabaci population reared on cotton was more tolerant to all four insecticides tested than the T. vaporariorum population from the same host, especially to abamectin (up to 8.4-fold). The effects of the four host plants on the activity of carboxylesterase (CarE) in B. tabaci biotype B and T. vaporariorum were also compared. The results showed that, although the CarE activity of B. tabaci and T. vaporariorum varied depending on the host plants, the B. tabaci population possessed significantly higher CarE activity than the T. vaporariorum population reared on the same host plant. This was especially so on cucumber and cotton, where the CarE activities of the B. tabaci population were over 1.6 times higher than those of T. varporariorum. The frequency profiles for this activity in B. tabaci and T. vaporariorum populations reared on same host plant were apparently different.