Effects of anaesthesia with carbon dioxide on vectoring ability and survival of the planthopper Laodelphax striatellus.

This paper describes the effects of carbon dioxide anaesthesia on the ability of the planthopper Laodelphax striatellus to subsequently acquire and transmit maize rough dwarf reovirus (MRDV) and barley yellow striate mosaic rhabdovirus (BYSMV), both propagative in the vector. Anaesthesia reduced the acquisition of MRDV by about 45%, but did not affect acquisition of BYSMV. In serial transfer transmission tests, anaesthesia caused interruption of transmission of both MRDV and BYSMV in about 11% of infectious insects; the effect may be due to impaired ability to find the phloem. The effect was stronger on third instar nymphs than on adults. Transmission of MRDV was resumed 3 days after anaesthesia, but none of the insects that stopped transmitting BYSMV resumed it. The survival of insects which ceased to transmit BYSMV was significantly lower than that of hoppers that continued to transmit. No other effects on survival were detected. A possible interaction of carbon dioxide with BYSMV in L. striatellus is discussed, in the light of effects of carbon dioxide on Drosophila melanogaster infected by some rhabdoviruses.