Soybean Aphid Life Cycle

The soybean aphid has a complex life cycle that alternates between two host plants and between sexual and asexual reproduction. Eggs overwinter on buckthorn, asexual females multiply rapidly on soybean through the summer, and a sexual generation returns to buckthorn in fall to lay the next year's eggs.

Soybean aphids do both at different times of year. Through spring and summer they reproduce asexually, with females giving live birth to clones, which lets populations explode quickly; in fall a sexual generation of males and egg-laying females produces the eggs that overwinter.

The soybean aphid uses two kinds of host. Its primary (overwintering) host is buckthorn, where eggs are laid and hatch in spring, and its secondary (summer) host is soybean, where the asexual generations feed and reproduce before winged forms migrate back to buckthorn.

Soybean aphids can complete many overlapping generations in a single season — often more than a dozen asexual generations on soybean during summer — because each asexual female matures quickly and gives live birth, before a final sexual generation closes the annual cycle.

You can generate a soybean aphid life cycle diagram on SciFig: describe the stages and host alternation, and SciFig produces an editable circular figure showing eggs, asexual summer generations, winged migrants, and the sexual fall generation. You can then relabel each stage and export it.

Yes. After generating the diagram you can open it in SciFig's editor to vectorize it into clean SVG, relabel each life stage and host plant, adjust the arrows of the cycle, and export it in the format your paper, poster, or slide requires.