Premise of the study: A PCR-based method of identifying ingested plant DNA in gut contents of Melanoplus grasshoppers was developed. Although previous investigations have focused on a variety of insects, there are no protocols available for plant DNA detection developed for grasshoppers, agricultural pests that significantly influence plant community composition.
Methods and Results: The developed protocol successfully used the noncoding region of the chloroplast trnL (UAA) gene and was tested in several feeding experiments. Plant DNA was obtained at seven time points post-ingestion from whole guts and separate gut sections, and was detectable up to 12 h post-ingestion in nymphs and 22 h post-ingestion in adult grasshoppers.
Conclusions: The proposed protocol is an effective, relatively quick, and low-cost method of detecting plant DNA from the grasshopper gut and its different sections. This has important applications, from exploring plant “movement” during food consumption, to detecting plant–insect interactions.
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1 February 2014
Plant DNA Detection from Grasshopper Guts: A Step-by-Step Protocol, from Tissue Preparation to Obtaining Plant DNA Sequences
Alina Avanesyan
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Applications in Plant Sciences
Vol. 2 • No. 2
February 2014
Vol. 2 • No. 2
February 2014
grasshoppers
insect gut content
plant DNA barcoding
trophic interactions