Associate Professor University of Northern Colorado Greeley, Colorado
Body of Abstract: Plants interact with friends (e.g., arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi) and foes (e.g., aphids) simultaneously. In most scenarios, plants benefit by forming symbioses with arbuscular mycorrhizal (AM) fungi as they gain important nutrients and are more resistant to pests. Nonetheless, some arthropods i.e., aphids perform better when feeding on mycorrhizal plants. This research interrogated samples showing that aphids gained more weight by feeding on mycorrhizal plants compared to non-mycorrhizal plants. This study examined the shoot and root transcriptome of barrel medic (Medicago truncatula) plants highly colonized by the AM fungus Rhizophagus irregularis and exposed to seven days of pea aphid (Acyrthosiphon pisum) feeding. The research hypotheses focused on specific pathways that involved defenses, nutrient acquisition, carbohydrates, and amino acid transport. The results revealed that the gene repertoire related to defenses, nutrient transport, and carbohydrates differs between mycorrhizal and non-mycorrhizal plants with aphids, which could help explain the weight gain in pea aphids. This dataset lay the foundation for future functional studies involving two- and three-way interactions.