Insects exhibit a range of ecological relationships with plants, including pollination, seed dispersal, parasitism, predation, and herbivory. Interactions between insects and plants are shaped by internal daily timekeeping systems in both sets of org...
Plants have evolved to establish insect herbivory defences by modulating their metabolism, growth, and development. Precise networks of phytohormones are essential to induce those herbivory defences. Gaseous phytohormone ET plays an important role in...
Insect herbivory exerts strong selective pressure on plants, yet no study has documented its effects on the halophytic Apiaceae Crithmum maritimum L. (sea fennel). Here, we present the first evidence of natural insect attack on this species, based on...
Insect foliar herbivory is ubiquitous in terrestrial ecosystems, yet its impacts on soil nitrogen cycling processes remain not yet well known. To examine the impacts of insect foliar herbivory on soil N2O emission flux and available nitrogen (N), we...
Maize plants challenged by insect herbivores activate an array of defense measures, all aimed to reduce damage and repel the attacker . Among those are the activation of proteins that interfere with the digestion of consumed plant material in the her...
In managed boreal forests, both plantations and natural regeneration are used to re-establish a cohort of conifer trees following harvest or disturbance. Young trees in open plantations generally grow more rapidly than under forest canopies, but more...
Herbivory reflects the interaction between plants and insects in ecosystems, and its latitudinal patterns at the global scale have attracted widespread attention. While many studies support the latitudinal herbivory hypothesis, it remains contentious...
Insect herbivory is one of the most important ecological processes affecting plant–soil feedbacks and overall forest ecosystem health. In this study, we assess how elevated carbon dioxide (eCO2) impacts (i) leaf level insect herbivory and (ii) the st...
Pinus edulis Engelm. (pinyon pine) is a tree in the Pinaceae family with wide geographic distribution throughout dry forests of western North America. Pinyon pine seed cones, which mature over a 2-year period before shedding seed, are often resinous....
The enemy-release hypothesis is one of the most popular but also most discussed hypotheses to explain invasion success. However, there is a lack of explicit, experimental tests of predictions of the enemy-release hypothesis (ERH), particularly regard...
Green leaf volatiles (GLVs) have long been associated with plant defense responses against insect herbivory. Although some of their biological activities appear to directly affect the attacking herbivore, one of the major functions of GLVs seems to b...
The functioning of ecosystems critically depends on biodiversity. However, the effects of herbivore diversity on plant damage caused by herbivore feeding remain underexplored. In this study, we tested the prediction that relative losses of foliage to...
The effect of the parent tree on seedling recruitment has been studied in various research studies. The Janzen–Connell (JC) hypothesis states that the closer the seedlings are to the source tree, the greater the risk of mortality and/or impact...
Cruciferous plants manufacture glucosinolates (GSLs) as special and important defense compounds against insects. However, how insect feeding induces glucosinolates in Brassica to mediate insect resistance, and how plants regulate the strength of anti...
In response to attack by bacterial pathogens, soybean (Gylcine max) leaves accumulate isoflavone aglucones, isoflavone glucosides, and glyceollins. In contrast to pathogens, the dynamics of related insect-inducible metabolites in soybean leaves remai...
Elevation gradients are used as a proxy to simulate climate change effects. A field study was conducted along an elevational gradient in Nepal to understand the effects of abiotic conditions on agriculturally important insect herbivore populations (t...
Insect herbivory imposes stress on host plants. This stress may cause an increase in leaf fluctuating asymmetry (FA), which is defined as the magnitude of the random deviations from a symmetrical leaf shape. We tested the hypothesis that differences...
Plants produce volatile organic compounds that are important in communication and defense. While studies have largely focused on volatiles emitted from aboveground plant parts upon exposure to biotic or abiotic stresses, volatile emissions from roots...
Plant resistance traits against insect herbivores are extremely plastic. Plants respond not only to the herbivory itself, but also to oviposition by herbivorous insects. How prior oviposition affects plant responses to larval herbivory is largely unk...
Photosystem II (PSII) is very sensitive to both biotic and abiotic stress conditions, mirroring global climate changes. Crop production worldwide faces rising hazards from the increased duration, frequency, and intensity of drought stress episodes as...
Methyl jasmonate (MeJA), synthesized in the jasmonic acid (JA) pathway, has been found to upregulate glucosinolate (GS) biosynthesis in plant species of the Brassicaceae family. Exogenous application of MeJA has shown to increase tissue GS concentrat...
Nitrogen (N) deposition is expected to influence forests. The effects of large-scale N fertilization on canopy layer insect–plant interactions in stands of tall, atmospheric nitrogen (N2)-fixing tree species have never been assessed. We conducted a l...
The potato tuber moth (PTM), Phthorimaea operculella Zeller (Lepidoptera: Gelechiidae), is one of the most destructive pests of potato crops worldwide. Although it has been reported how potatoes integrate the early responses to various PTM herbivory...
Plant performance in any one generation is affected not only by the prevailing environmental conditions, but also by the conditions experienced by the parental generation of those plants. These maternal effects have been recorded in a many plant spec...
The red palm weevil (RPW; Rhynchophorus ferrugineus Olivier (Coleoptera Curculionidae)) is an invasive insect pest that is difficult to manage due to its nature of infesting the host palm trees from within. A holistic, molecular-based approach to ide...
In the struggle to survive herbivory by leaf-feeding insects, plants employ multiple strategies to defend themselves. One mechanism by which plants increase resistance is by intensifying their responsiveness in the production of certain defense agent...
Rising global temperatures are associated with increases in the geographic range, population size, and feeding voracity of insect herbivores. Although it is well established that the plant hormone jasmonate (JA) promotes durable resistance to many ec...
Grasses accumulate large amounts of silicon (Si) which is deposited in trichomes, specialised silica cells and cell walls. This may increase leaf toughness and reduce cell rupture, palatability and digestion. Few studies have measured leaf mechanical...
Amaranth (Amaranthus spp.) is an increasingly high-valued niche vegetable crop among small organic growers in North Carolina, due to its increasing demand among diverse immigrant groups. Production is however hampered by insect pests such as the flea...
Clonal plants are interconnected to form clonal plant networks with physiological integration, enabling the reassignment as well as sharing of resources among the members. The systemic induction of antiherbivore resistance via clonal integration may...
Plants are challenged regularly with multiple types of biotic stress factors, such as pathogens or insect herbivores, in their environment. To detect and defend against pathogens, plants have evolved an innate immune system in which intracellular rec...
Inoculation with rhizobacteria and feeding by herbivores, two types of abiotic stress, have been shown to increase the production of secondary metabolites in plants as part of the defense response. This study explored the simultaneous effects of inoc...
This study explores how elevated carbon dioxide (CO2) levels affects the growth and defense mechanisms of plants. We focused on Aristolochia contorta Bunge (Aristolochiaceae), a wild plant that exhibits growth reduction under elevated CO2 in the prev...
In addition to direct tissue consumption, herbivory may affect other important plant processes. Here, we evaluated the effects of short-time leaf feeding by Spodoptera exigua larvae on the photosynthetic efficiency of tomato plants, using chlorophyll...
Sugarcane is the most important sugar crop, contributing ≥80% to total sugar production around the world. Spodoptera frugiperda is one of the main pests of sugarcane, potentially causing severe yield and sugar loss. The identification of key defen...
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Plants are attacked by multiple herbivores, and depend on a precise regulation of responses to cope with a wide range of antagonists. Simultaneous herbivory can occur in different plant compartments, which may pose a serious threat to plant growth an...
Changes during leaf ontogeny affect palatability to herbivores, such that many insects, including the eastern spruce budworm (Choristoneura fumiferana (Clem.)), are specialist feeders on growing conifer leaves and buds. Developmental constraints impl...
Timber trees are targets of herbivorous attacks. The identification of genes associated with pest resistance can be accomplished through differential expression analysis using transcriptomes. We reported the de novo assembly of cedar (Cedrela odorata...
Artificial regeneration is successful when high-performing seedlings are transported with care to the planting site, stored for a short period in an environment without desiccation or fungal growth, and planted in a deep hole, so roots are in contact...
The red palm weevil (RPW) is a stem boring Coleoptera that decimates host palm trees from within. The challenge of managing this pest is due to a lack of physical symptoms during the early stages of infestation. Investigating the physiological change...
Galling arthropods represent one of the most specialized herbivore groups. On an evolutionary scale, different taxa of insects and mites have convergently adapted to a galling lifestyle. In this study, we have used a multi-taxonomic approach to analy...
Headwater streams are reliant on riparian tree leaf litterfall to fuel brown food webs. Terrestrial agents like herbivores and contaminants can alter plant growth, litter production, litter quality, and the timing of litterfall into streams, influenc...
Plants are constantly interacting with the diverse microbial community as well as insect pests throughout their life cycle. Due to their sessile nature, plants rely solely on the intracellular signaling and reprogramming of cellular events to resist...
The study of insect populations is dominated by research on terrestrial insects. Are aquatic insect populations different or are they just presumed to be different? We explore the evidence across several topics. (1) Populations of terrestrial herbivo...
Many studies have addressed several plant-insect interaction topics at nutritional, molecular, physiological, and evolutionary levels. However, it is still unknown how flexible the metabolism and the nutritional content of specialist insect herbivore...
Symmetry pervades nature, but asymmetry is also rather common. Deviations from genetically programmed symmetry are usually associated with internal or external developmental disturbances and may therefore be related to imperfections in physiological...
Novel, non-coevolved associations between introduced plants and native insect herbivores may lead to changes in trophic interactions in native communities, as well as to substantial economic problems. Although some studies in invasion ecology demonst...
Green leaf volatiles (GLVs) are rapidly released by plant leaves upon damage. This makes them ideal signals to convey the presence of a damaging threat to other parts of the same plant, but also to plants nearby. There, GLVs were first found to activ...
Intrataxonomic differences in terms of angiosperm suitability for herbivorous insects stem from variables such as plant structure, palatability, and chemistry. It has not yet been elucidated whether these differences also occur in terms of the bryoph...
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