Abstract: 【Aim】 The green peach aphid, Myzus persicae (Sulzer), and the potato aphid, Macrosiphum euphorbiae (Thomas) are two main potato pests. Our study aims to investigate the effects of temperature on the growth and development, survivorship, reproduction and population growth of the two pests.【Methods】 We determined the indexes of the growth and development, survivorship and reproduction of M. persicae and M. euphorbiae at five temperatures (10, 15, 20, 25 and 30℃) in the laboratory, and constructed the life tables of their laboratory populations at four constant temperatures (10, 15, 20 and 25℃). 【Results】 The developmental periods of immature stages, generation duration, adult longevity and reproduction period decreased as the temperature increased from 10℃ to 25℃, and the development, survivorship and reproduction were restrained at 30℃. The mean generation time (T) decreased with the temperature increasing, and those of M. persicae and M. euphorbiae shortened from 30.08 and 35.35 d at 10℃ to 14.28 and 12.95 d at 25℃, respectively. The net reproduction rate (R₀) of M. persicae was the highest at 15℃ with the value of 86.00, followed by 73.75 at 20℃, 62.49 at 25℃ and 51.00 at 10℃, while that of M. euphorbiae was the highest at 15℃ with the value of 58.97, followed by 51.98 at 10℃, 48.96 at 20℃ and 12.36 at 25℃. The intrinsic rate of increase (r_m) of M. persicae increased from 0.1307 at 10℃ to 0.2896 at 25℃, while that of M. euphorbiae was the highest at 20℃ with the value of 0.2182, followed by 0.1942 at 25℃, 0.1485 at 15℃ and 0.1118 at 10℃. The developmental rates, R₀ and rm of M. persicae were higher than those of M. euphorbiae at the same temperature. 【Conclusion】 These results indicate that temperature significantly affects the growth and development, survivorship, reproduction and population increase of these two potato aphid species, and M. persicae has a stronger growth ability than M. euphorbiae on potatoes. This study provides the foundation for the construction of forecasting models of potato aphids and explains why M. persicae occurs more frequently than M. euphorbiae in potato fields from an ecological view.

Key words:  Myzus persicae, Macrosiphum euphorbiae, potato, temperature, survival curve, life table