Inheritance mode and realized heritability of resistance to nitenpyram in the brown planthoper, Nilaparvata lugens Stål (Hemiptera: Delphacidae)

Nilaparvata lugens Stål (Hemiptera: Delphacidae) is an important agricultural insect pest all around the world due to its serious damage to rice plants by sucking sap and transmitting viral diseases. The synthetic insecticides such as neonicotinoid insecticides have widely been used to control this insect pest. Nitenpyram belongs to this group of insecticides, which is the third commercialized nicotinic acetylcholine receptor (nAChR) competitive modulators. Due to the intensive application of this insecticide, moderate level of resistance to nitenpyram has rapidly evolved in field populations of N. lugens in China. Thus, a study of the mode of inheritance and the realized heritability of resistance in laboratory-selected resistance strain against nitenpyram (resistance ratio, RR = 144.7-fold) was made to estimate the resistance in N. lugens. In this study, the reciprocal crosses were used to determine the inheritance mode. The chi-square (χ2) test and concentration-response curve goodness-of-fit between observed and the expected mortality were used to estimate monogenic resistance or multiple-gene resistance. The value of the realized heritability (h2) was 0.12 in the nitenpyram-selected strain of N. lugens. The LC50s of F1 (NR♂ × NS♀) and F1’ (NR♀ × NS♂) were 2.62 mg/L and 2.94 mg/L, respectively, with overlapped the confidence intervals of both suggesting autosomal inheritance. The degree of dominance (D) values of F1 and F1’ was 0.06 and 0.10, respectively, indicating that nitenpyram resistance was compatible with an incompletely dominant inheritance in the tested populations of N. lugens. The resistance against nitenpyram could be controlled by more than one gene in N. lugens. The present study suggested that nitenpyram resistance agaisnt N. lugens was inherited as autosomal, incompletely dominant and multigene. Based on the results of this study, minimize the selection for resistance may delay the evolution of resistance against nitenpyram in this species. Therefore, this study will support helpful information to manage the evolution of N. lugens resistance against nitenpyram and ensure rice food security as well as rural livelihoods. •Nitenpyram is important for controlling N. lugens in China. Thus, the genetic resistance to nitenpyram was to assess.•The value of the realized heritability (h2) was 0.12 in the nitenpyram-selected strain of N. lugens.•The resistance to nitenpyram was autosomal incompletely dominant hereditary in the resistant strain of