Using High Throughput Sequencing to Link Cotton Fleahopper Gut Content to Host Plants

The cotton fleahopper, Pseudatomoscelis seriatus (Reuter), is an early season cotton pest whose feeding can result in square abortion, irregular plant growth, and delayed maturity. This Texas native generalist has been documented feeding on over 160 host plants across 35 families. For the most part, identification of these host plants was accomplished through field observation and/or controlled feeding studies under lab conditions. As an opportunistic or obligatory feeder, these results may not be an accurate representation of the cotton fleahopper diet. Previous studies have demonstrated that it is possible to identify plant families by analyzing plant DNA found in the insect gut. In these studies, DNA was extracted from the gut of large chewing insects or whole small-bodied, sponging-feeding insects. We present a proof-of-concept that this technique works in the cotton fleahopper, a small piercing-sucking insect. This new method may produce a more definitive list of host plants used by the cotton fleahopper and prove useful for identifying hosts plants used by other piercing-sucking pests.