Soldiers effectively defend aphid colonies against predators in the field

Morphologically specialized soldiers occur in more than 50 aphid species in the families Pemphigidae and Hormaphididae. To study the effectiveness of soldiers of the gall-forming aphid, Pemphigus spyrothecae Pass., in protecting their galls against natural levels of predation, we manipulated the proportions of soldiers and non-soldiers in sets of galls still attached to poplar trees in the field. Galls with 50 soldiers and 50 non-soldiers were approximately 10 times less likely to be attacked by predators than galls that contained 100 non-soldier aphids. There were significantly fewer live aphids, and significantly more dead aphids, in galls without soldiers than in galls protected either by soldiers or by being within a bag. There were no significant differences in the survival of aphids in galls protected by soldiers compared with those protected by bagging. The soldiers did not protect the galls against invasion by the cohabiting aphid Chaitophorus leucomelas Koch. These observations provide the first demonstration that soldiers are effective in defence against natural levels of predation under field conditions. Copyright 1998 The Association for the Study of Animal Behaviour Copyright 1998 The Association for the Study of Animal Behaviour.