The soybean aphid is infected with the secondary endosymbiont Arsenophonus. This project will investigate the role that secondary symbionts have in the soybean aphid and how they influence the aphid's interaction with its host plant, parasitoids, and predators to maximize integrated approaches to managing this insect pest.

This bacterium Arsenophonus has close relatives that cause disease in plants, i.e. strawberry marginal chlorosis in strawberries and low sugar beet syndrome in beets. Both of these diseases are spread by plant hoppers when feeding on strawberries and beets. In the pea aphid, secondary symbionts have been shown to control resistance to parasitoids, while in the sweet...