Horticulture Research Station

Eco-Evolutionary Dynamics of a Beetle-Vectored Cucurbit Pathogen

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Abstract

This study is exploring the ecological and evolutionary processes influencing beetle transmission of bacterial plant pathogens. Understanding these processes is important to predicting outbreaks of existing beetle-transmitted diseases and anticipating the emergence of new ones. The project is based on the premise that beetles have a relatively unsophisticated means of spreading pathogens—namely eating infected plant tissues and depositing the pathogen in the feces onto feeding wounds. This lack of sophistication poses a higher risk that beetles will spread new diseases than will insects with more sophisticated interactions with pathogens. The latter include aphids and leafhoppers, which transmit pathogens only after a lengthy evolutionary period in which both the pathogen and the insect change to accommodate the other.

How to Cite:

Beattie, G. A., (2026) “Eco-Evolutionary Dynamics of a Beetle-Vectored Cucurbit Pathogen”, Iowa State University Research and Demonstration Farms Progress Reports 2025(1), 3-4.