Altering Plant Defenses: Effector Arsenal of Herbivores and Ecological Implications

Dear Colleagues,

The suppression of plant defenses by arthropods has received a great deal of attention in recent years from various research fields. For example, there is growing interest in describing the molecular mechanisms involved in plant defense manipulation, with such studies providing new insights into the physiological knowledge of both plants and arthropods. Various proteins or metabolites produced by herbivores (or associated biota) are injected into the plant, initiating a complex interaction with the signal transduction machinery, resulting in an attenuation of plant defensive responses. These proteins/metabolites are called effectors and are nowadays considered the main players in plant/arthropod interaction. Suppressing plant defenses is also interesting for ecologists and evolutionary biologists, given that manipulating plant defenses could carry certain disadvantages. For example, defense-suppressed plants reduce the accumulation of toxic compounds, thus becoming better hosts for other herbivores (competitors), which could also enhance the action of natural enemies that are less exposed to plant defenses. These drawbacks lead to the question of why plant suppression is so widespread in arthropod communities and what role does it play in host race formation.

The aim of this Special Issue is to bring together new articles (original research papers, perspectives, opinions, reviews, modeling approaches) that provide new insights in the field of plant defense manipulation from a broad point of view. Manuscripts that focus on the molecular mechanisms responsible for plant defense suppression and/or study the ecological implications of the plant defense manipulation are of interest.

Dr. J. M. (Juan) Alba
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

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Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2700 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

• plant defense suppression
• plant manipulation
• plant arthropod interaction
• effector
• oral secretion
• salivary proteins
• hormonal crosstalk
• endosymbionts