Plants Smell Different When Attacked by Exotic Herbivores
Plants emit odours to call in reinforcements; for example, to let a parasitic wasp know that a caterpillar is present. This may not help the plant immediately, but in the long run it means fewer butterflies and voracious caterpillars in the next generation. Dutch field mustard (Brassica rapa) emits different odour bouquets in response to exotic as opposed to native caterpillars, slugs and aphids.
“We used clever statistical models and calculations to identify the complex combinations of volatile substances induced by the different groups of herbivores,” says Nicole van Dam, professor of Plant-Insect Interactions at Radboud University’s Institute for Water and Wetland Research (IWWR) and the German Institute for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv) Halle-Jena-Leipzig.
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Exotic and native species were not defined by a single volatile substance, but by the ratio of volatiles they produced. “This is consistent with what we know about the perception and behaviour of parasitic wasps and other predators. They use the bouquet of odours released by the plant to obtain information about their prey.”
Communicating plants
Climate change and globalisation have helped to introduce an increasing number of exotic herbivores to the Netherlands. This can disrupt existing interactions between plants, herbivores and parasitic wasps. “Our initial idea was that the new odour bouquets emitted by plants when they are attacked by exotic herbivores may confuse parasitic wasps,” explains Van Dam. “This may reduce the effectiveness of biological pest control. Our research suggests that endemic parasitic wasps can learn to avoid these plants by identifying differences in odours.”
you can also read this news on http://www.ru.nl/english/news-agenda/news/vm/iwwr/2017/plants-smell-exotic-herbivore-insect-attack/
Contacts and sources:
Radboud University
Citation: Herbivore-induced plant volatiles accurately predict history of coexistence, diet breadth, and feeding mode of herbivores New Phytologist
Source: http://www.ineffableisland.com/2017/01/plants-smell-different-when-attacked-by.html
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