Figure 5.

Effects of mirid feeding on tomato shoot length. Changes in shoot length caused by Macrolophus pygmaeus (A,B) or Nesidiocoris tenuis (C,D) feeding were assessed on mock-inoculated plants (Mock) and plants inoculated with Paraburkholderia phytofirmans PsJN (PsJN) or Enterobacter sp. 32A (32A) and calculated as the difference between the shoot length measured before (Day 7) and after (Day 11) the acquisition period (A,C), or before (Day 11) and after (Day 14) the mirid-mediated transmission (B,D). The two-way analysis of variance showed no significant differences between the two experimental repetitions (p > 0.05) and data from the two experiments were pooled. Mean and standard error values for positive samples and at least nine replicates (plants) are presented for each treatment. Different letters indicate significant differences among treatments according to Tukey’s test (p ≤ 0.05). Asterisks indicate significant differences in the pairwise comparisons between the mock-inoculated and bacterium-inoculated plants, according to Student’s t-test (p ≤ 0.05).