Common resistance mechanisms are deployed by plants against sap-feeding herbivorous insects: insights from a meta-analysis and systematic review

Abstract

Sap-feeding insects cause significant yield losses to the world’s crops, these insects feed using syringe-like mouthparts and electrophysiology can be used to compare feeding behaviour on susceptible and resistant plants to identify the mechanistic processes behind resistant phenotypes. Data extracted from 129 studies, comprising 41 insect species across eight insect taxa and 12 host-plant families representing over 30 species, demonstrates that mechanisms deployed by resistant plants have common consequences on the feeding behaviour of diverse insect groups. We show that insects feeding on resistant plants take longer to establish a feeding site and have their feeding duration suppressed two-fold compared with insects feeding on susceptible plants. Our results reveal that the underlying traits contributing towards resistant phenotypes are conserved across plant families, deployed against taxonomically diverse insect groups, and that the underlying resistance mechanisms are conserved. These findings provide new insight that will be beneficial when developing future crop varieties.