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With increasing global climate change, analyses of stress-inducing conditions have important significance in ecological adaptation and the biological distribution of species. To reveal the difference in temperature-adaptive strategy between Turpan and Beijing populations of Bemisia tabaci (Gennadius) Middle East Asia Minor 1 (MEAM1) under high-temperature stress conditions, we compared thermal tolerance and life history traits between Beijing and Turpan populations of MEAM1 after exposure to different heat shock treatments for different times. The experimental design reflected the nature of heat stress conditions suffered by MEAM1. The results showed that eggs, red-eyed pupae, and adults of the Turpan population were more heat tolerant than those of the Beijing population under the same stress conditions. Additionally, it was found that longevity and F1 adult survival rate were significantly higher in the Turpan population than in the Beijing population after heat shock stress, but egg number and F1 female ratio were not significantly different between Turpan population and Beijing population. Overall, it was suggested that heat tolerance and longevity traits were the most relevant for climate characteristics and not reproductive traits, and improved heat tolerance and prolonged longevity were important adaptive strategies that helped MEAM1 to survive in harsh high-temperature conditions such as Turpan arid desert climate. The present results provided further insight into the modes of heat tolerance and the ways in which survival and longevity traits respond to environmental selection pressures., (© The Author 2014. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Entomological Society of America.)

The invasive Mediterranean Bemisia tabaci (Gennadius) (Hemiptera: Aleyrodidae) has emerged as one of the most common agricultural pests in the world. In the present study, we examined the cross-tolerance, fitness costs, and benefits of thermal tolerance and the variation in the responses of life history traits after heat-shock selection. The results showed that survival and longevity of Mediterranean B. tabaci were decreased significantly after direct or cross temperature stress and that the number of eggs per female was not reduced significantly. Furthermore, heat-shock selection dramatically increased the survival of Mediterranean B. tabaci within two generations, and it did not significantly affect the egg number per female within five generations. These results indicated that there was a trade-off between survival, longevity, and reproduction in Mediterranean B. tabaci after temperature stress. The improvement in reproduction was costly in terms of decreased survival and longevity, and there was a fitness consequence to temperature stress. In addition, heat tolerance in Mediterranean B. tabaci increased substantially after selection by heat shock, indicating a considerable variation for survival tolerance in this species. This information could help us better understand the thermal biology of Mediterranean B. tabaci within the context of climate change., (This is an open access paper. We use the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 license that permits unrestricted use, provided that the paper is properly attributed.)