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Comparative performance and transcriptomics of tomato (Solanum lycopersicum) in response to Bombus terrestris (Hymenoptera, Apidae) and 2,4-dichlorophenoxyacetic acid

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Abstract

The introduction of pollinator bumblebees (Bombus terrestris) or using the plant hormone, 2,4-dichlorophenoxyacetic acid (2,4-D), are common methods to improve tomato production in greenhouses. In this study, we compared the performance and transcriptomics of Solanum lycopersicum in response to B. terrestris and 2,4-D in greenhouse experiments. Tomato plants exposed to bumblebees had significantly higher fruiting rate and yield, weight and seed amounts, and significantly improved vitamin C, lycopene, soluble sugar contents, compared to hormone treatment. Bumblebee-treated tomatoes had 1171 significantly up-regulated genes, mainly enriched in photosynthesis, response to wounding, flavonoid biosynthesis, and carbohydrate biosynthetic process. By contrast, a total of 718 genes of 2,4-D-treated tomatoes were significantly up-regulated, which were mainly enriched in UDP-glucosyltransferase activity, response to chemical or auxin. Quantitative real-time PCR analysis of 14 candidate genes all exhibited good reproduction with the transcriptome data. These responses implied that bumblebee-treated tomatoes had improved photosynthesis and carbon-fixation capacity compared to 2,4-D-treated tomatoes. The use of bumblebees, as natural pollinators should be widely adopted in greenhouse horticulture to increase tomato yields and its nutritional contents.

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Data availability

The datasets generated for this study can be found in the NCBI, accession number SRR22890752.

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Acknowledgements

This study was supported by Shandong Provincial Natural Science Foundation (ZR2021YQ21, ZR2021QC218 and ZR2020QC156), Shandong Provincial Agriculture Research System (SDAIT-24) and the National Natural Science Foundation of China (32102199 and 32102405). We would like to thank DBMediting for professional English language services, and anonymous reviewers for valuable suggestions to improve an earlier draft of this manuscript.

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  1. Xunbing Huang and Li Zheng have contributed equally to this work.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. College of Agriculture and Forestry Science, Linyi University, Linyi, 276000, People’s Republic of China

    Xunbing Huang, Ying Huang & Li Zheng

  2. Institute of Plant Protection, Shandong Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Jinan, 250100, People’s Republic of China

    Xiaoyan Dai, Li Zheng, Hao Chen, Yan Liu & Yifan Zhai

  3. Feixian Agricultural Technology Extension Center, Feixian, 273400, People’s Republic of China

    Peiqun Zhu

  4. Shandong Animal Husbandry Station, Jinan, 250022, People’s Republic of China

    Shuer Zhang

  5. Agricultural Affairs Section, Linyi Government Affairs Service Center, Linyi, 276000, People’s Republic of China

    Junyang Jia

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  1. Xunbing Huang
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Contributions

The work was carried out in collaboration with all eight authors. XH, YH, and YZ: conceived the ideas and designed methodology. XH, XD, LZ, HC, YL, PZ, SZ and JJ: collected the data. XH and YZ: analyzed the dataset and wrote the manuscript. All authors critically reviewed and approved the final draft for publication.

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Correspondence to Xunbing Huang or Yifan Zhai.

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Huang, X., Huang, Y., Dai, X. et al. Comparative performance and transcriptomics of tomato (Solanum lycopersicum) in response to Bombus terrestris (Hymenoptera, Apidae) and 2,4-dichlorophenoxyacetic acid. Arthropod-Plant Interactions 18, 241–251 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11829-023-10024-7

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