Inheritance mode and fitness costs of clothianidin resistance in brown planthopper, Nilaparvata lugens (Stål)

Abstract Clothianidin is a neonicotinoid insecticide that acts as a full agonist stimulating nAChRs and is widely used to control the brown planthopper, Nilaparvata lugens (Stal). To investigate the adaptation of N. lugens in the process of developing resistance to clothianidin, a clothianidin-resistant N. lugens strain and an unselected strain were used in this study. The F1 reciprocal crosses between the resistant and the susceptible strains indicated that the observed resistance was autosomal and incompletely dominant. Chi-square analyses of self-bred and backcrossed progenies suggested that the observed resistance was controlled by multiple genes. The resistant strain exhibited a relative fitness of 0.78 with a significantly increased adult preoviposition period and significantly decreased total fecundity. The current study provides valuable information for resistance management strategies to delay the development of clothianidin resistance in N. lugens.