Cereal aphids are major insect pests of wheat, which cause significant damages to wheat production. Previous studies mainly focused on the resistance of different wheat varieties to one specific aphid species. However, reports on the physiology and defense responses of wheat to different cereal aphids are basically lacking. In this work, we studied the feeding behavior of three cereal aphids: the grain aphid, Sitobion avenae (Fabricius), the greenbugs, Schizaphis graminum (Rondani), and the bird cherry-oat aphid, Rhopalosiphum padi (Linnaeus) on winter wheat, and the physiology and defense responses of wheat to the infestation of these cereal aphids with focus on how these cereal aphids utilize divergent strategies to optimize their nutrition requirement from wheat leaves. Our results indicated that S. graminum and R. padi were better adapted to penetrating phloem tissue and to collect more nutrition than S. avenae. The harm on wheat physiology committed by S. graminum and R. padi was severer than that by S. avenae, through reducing chlorophyll concentration and interfering metabolism genes. Furthermore, cereal aphids manipulated the plant nutrition metabolism by increasing the relative concentration of major amino acids and percentage of essential amino acids. In addition, different cereal aphids triggered specific defense response in wheat. All of these results suggested that different cereal aphids utilize divergent strategies to change the physiological and defense responses of their host plants in order to optimize their nutrition absorption and requirement. These findings not only extend our current knowledge on the insect–plant interactions but also provide useful clues to develop novel biotechnological strategies for enhancing the resistance and tolerance of crop plants against phloem-feeding insects.

谷物蚜虫是小麦的主要害虫，会对小麦生产造成重大损害。先前的研究主要集中在不同小麦品种对一种特定蚜虫物种的抗性上。但是，基本上没有关于小麦对不同谷物蚜虫的生理和防御反应的报道。在这项工作中，我们研究了三种谷物蚜虫的摄食行为：谷物蚜虫，Sitobion avenae（Fabricius），绿虫，Schizaphis graminum（Rondani）和鸟樱桃燕麦蚜虫Rhopalosiphum padi（Linnaeus）冬小麦，以及小麦对这些谷物蚜虫侵袭的生理和防御反应，重点是这些谷物蚜虫如何利用不同的策略来优化其小麦叶片的营养需求。我们的结果表明，S。graminum和R. padi比S. avenae更适合穿透韧皮部组织并收集更多的营养。通过致力于对小麦的生理危害S.蚜和R.蚜是严厉比由麦长管蚜，通过降低叶绿素浓度和干扰代谢基因。此外，谷物蚜虫通过增加主要氨基酸的相对浓度和必需氨基酸的百分比来操纵植物的营养代谢。此外，不同的谷物蚜虫触发了小麦的特定防御反应。所有这些结果表明，不同的谷物蚜虫利用不同的策略来改变其寄主植物的生理和防御反应，以优化其营养吸收和需求。这些发现不仅扩展了我们目前在昆虫与植物相互作用方面的知识，而且为开发新的生物技术策略提供了有用的线索，以增强农作物对韧皮部食虫的抗性和耐受性。