Figure 7.

Ma. sexta leaf herbivory affects the M. incognita infection cycle. A, Schematic overview of the experimental designs used to evaluate the impact of Ma. sexta leaf herbivory on specific stages of the M. incognita infection cycle. B, The impact of Ma. sexta leaf herbivory on M. incognita root invasion was assessed in Bioassay 1. Infection success of M. incognita was quantified at 3 and 7 d after M. incognita inoculation (dai) by analyzing M. incognita Actin gene relative to SlEF gene. This was done in roots of plants challenged with M. incognita alone (M. incognita) and in roots of plants that were also challenged with Ma. sexta (M. incognita + Ma. sexta). C, The impact of Ma. sexta leaf herbivory on M. incognita galling was assessed in Bioassay 2. The number of galls was quantified in roots of plants challenged with M. incognita alone and in roots of plants that were also challenged with Ma. sexta, three weeks after M. incognita inoculation. D, The impact of Ma. sexta leaf herbivory on M. incognita reproduction was analyzed in Bioassay 3. The total number of number of eggs was assessed in the roots of plants challenged with M. incognita alone and in roots of plants that were also challenged with Ma. sexta. Eggs were collected from tomato root tissue five weeks after M. incognita inoculation. Box plots represent the IQR, the bisecting line represents the median, the whiskers represent 1.5 times the IQR, and the data are from five individual plants in B, or 10 in C and D. In (B), Different letters indicate differences between treatments (ANOVA, Tukey’s test P ≤ 0.05). In (C) and (D), the asterisk indicates significant differences between the treatments according to Student’s t test (P ≤ 0.05).