Finding the invisible: Detecting arthropod pests in greenhouse grown tomato plants using environmental DNA

Arthropod pests pose a major threat to control environment agriculture such as greenhouses, as many avoid early detection. Environmental DNA or eDNA can prove to be an effective and sensitive method in detecting the presence of these pests by using only the genetic material left behind by these arthropods without the need of visual identification. Our main objective is to use eDNA to detect and identify the presence of sweet potato whiteflies (Bemisia tabaci), green peach aphids (Myzus persicae) and two-spotted spider mites (Tetranychus urticae) in greenhouse grown tomato plants. As a secondary aim we also designed DNA primers sets that are specific for each arthropod pest species. We hypothesis that the presence can be determined using the eDNA of the three species of arthropod pests by collecting eDNA samples from the surface of the tomato plant’s leaves. Using polymerase chain reaction (PCR) and real time quantitative PCR (RT-qPCR) to identify the presence of B. tabaci, M. persicae and T. urticae in the surface of tomato plant leaves. Here we were able to showcase the effectiveness of eDNA in a control environment agriculture system by being able to detect the genetic material of the three distinct species pests by extracting the discarded DNA from the surface of the leaves of tomato plants. Additionally, we also highlight the sensitivity of eDNA by detecting the genetic material of pests even at low population density.