Testing a new hypothesis: plant vigor and phylloxera distribution on wild grape in Arizona

Longer, meaning more vigorous, shoots of a wild grape clone (Vitis arizonica) were more susceptible to attack by second and third generations of leaf-galling grape phylloxera,Daktulopsphaira vitifoliae, as the growing season progressed. Although there was no significant difference in mean shoot length between attacked and unattacked shoots within a clone at the beginning of shoot elongation, attacked shoots were significantly longer than unattacked shoots when elongation had ceased (P<0.01). Also, long attacked shoots had a significantly greater population of phylloxera galls than short attacked shoots (P<0.01) as the season progressed. The phylloxera population on long shoots increased rapidly while the population on short shoots remained the same. Longer shoots also produced significantly more axillary shoots than shorter shoots as the season progressed (P<0.001), and the number of axillary shoots accounted for 66 percent of the variance in number of attacked leaves on a shoot. Experimental evidence showed that there was a significantly greater percentage of available leaves attacked on long shoots than on short shoots (P<0.05) and the leaves on long shoots generally had a greater number of galls per leaf. The relationship between shoot length and probability of attack was also tested by comparing shoots lengths of 10 attacked clones and 10 unattacked clones at a second location. Mean shoot lengths of attacked clones were significantly longer than mean shoot lengths of unattacked clones (P<0.05), and mean shoot lengths of attacked shoots within a clone were significantly longer than unattacked shoots (P<0.001). Longer shoot length accounted for 81 percent of the variance in probability of attack. The reason for this pattern of attack was that long shoots produced newly expanding leaves over a longer time during the growing season and multivoltine phylloxera require undifferentiated tissue to initiate gall formation. Patterns of attack within a shoot were characterized by an uneven distribution of galls among leaves. This was due to development time between generations and the current availability of undifferentiated tissue at times of colonization. This study supports the hypothesis that some herbivore species are favored more by vigorous plants than by stressed plants.