On the theory of the parallelism of potato resistance to the twenty-eight-spotted potato ladybird beetle Henosepilachna vigintioctomaculata (Сoleoptera:Соссinelladae) and the Colorado potato beetle Leptinotarsa decemlineata (Сoleoptera:Chrysomelidae) by I.M. Gontyurov: analytical essay

Relevance. Establishing the parallelism of potato resistance to the Colorado potato beetle and the potato ladybird beetle was an important step for Russian breeding in the 1960s. In his scientific work “On the parallelism of potato resistance to Epilachna vigintioctomaculata Motsch and Leptinotarsa decemlineata Say”, I.M. Gontyurov stated that the complete metamorphosis of the potato ladybird beetle and the Colorado potato beetle was possible only on plants belonging to the genus Solanum and that the larvae of the potato ladybird beetle were not polytrophic, which was contrary to the existing publications by Ivanova, Kurentsov, and other researchers reporting the polyphagous nature of the potato ladybird beetle. A.I. Kurentsov noted that H. vigintioctomaculata was a typical representative of the Manchuria fauna, populated the areas bordering on mixed coniferous and temperate broad-leaf forests in the Far East, and inhabited grasses in forest clearings before the onset of mass agricultural practices. This directly contradicted the postulate of I.M. Gontyrov. His analysis of the ecological characteristics of the species was erroneous, which led to further unfortunate mistakes in the design and performance of the experiment as well as in the interpretation of the research results.Materials and Methods. Our research goal was to analyze the existing methods for determining the ecological plasticity of the Colorado potato beetle and the potato ladybird beetle, including the use of our data.Results. There are no studies reporting the parallelism of the ecological plasticity of the Colorado potato beetle and the ladybird potato beetle. This is due to the fact that the bioecological characteristics of the potato ladybird beetle significantly differ from those of the Colorado potato beetle: polyphagous insect, migrates between trophic and winter hibernation sites, self-regulation of the population density, higher reproductive coefficient, and higher net consumption rate. Additionally, there are differences in the feeding preferences of the insect species for potato varieties. This suggests different influence of the secondary metabolites on the ontogeny of the phytophagous insects. All this provides a wide range of work for researchers and breeding institutions.