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Title: MICROSTRUCTURE OF WHITEFLY FEEDING: SCANNING ELECTRON MICROSCOPY OF SALIVARY SHEATHS

Author
item COHEN, ALLEN
item FREEMAN, THOMAS - NORTHERN CROPS, FARGO, ND
item HENNEBERRY, THOMAS
item NELSON, DENNIS
item BUCKNER, JAMES
item CHU, CHANG CHI

Submitted to: Sweetpotato Whitefly Progress Review Proceedings
Publication Type: Abstract Only
Publication Acceptance Date: 8/1/1996
Publication Date: N/A
Citation: N/A

Interpretive Summary:

Technical Abstract: Using freeze fracture and scanning electron microscopy, we examined several hundred leaf sections to determine the course of salivary sheaths within cotton plant leaves (both from the greenhouse and the field). We found that the sheaths had a beaded appearance with a diameter of about 2.0 um. Some sheaths reached lengths of about 140 um, and the few that we traced to the point of insertion of stylers appeared to terminate in phloem elements. Th sheaths were extremely sinuous and complicated, many of them forming 4-6 branches. We rarely found sheaths to penetrate the mesophyll cells, but rather, they wound around and between mesophyll cells. We found numerous connections of the sheath material to cell walls. We discovered spheroid structures that appeared to be part of the salivary sheath. We suspect that the spheroid structures are failed efforts at producing an intact, functional sheath. The most common place to find spheroids was in epidermal lcells of highly infested cotton plants. Nearly all penetrations of the salivary sheaths were through rather than between epidermal cells. At least 85-90 p of the length of salivary sheaths was through air space between cells. Almost none was between cells or in mesophyll cells.