Plant Volatile Signalling: Multitrophic Interactions in the Headspace

Kessler, André; Morrell, Kimberly

doi:10.1002/9780470669532.ch4

Cited by 12 publications

(10 citation statements)

References 196 publications

(184 reference statements)

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“…Research on plant VOCs produced after insect herbivory has been dominated by studies aboveground (see Kessler and Morrell, 2010), probably due to methodological constraints related to subterranean investigations. More recently, the number of studies showing that herbivore induced belowground volatiles trigger predator attraction in the soil has increased.…”

Section: Methods For Detecting Herbivore-induced Cues Belowgroundmentioning

confidence: 99%

Analyzing spatial patterns linked to the ecology of herbivores and their natural enemies in the soil

Campos‐Herrera¹,

Ali²,

Díaz³

et al. 2013

Front. Plant Sci.

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Modern agricultural systems can benefit from the application of concepts and models from applied ecology. When understood, multitrophic interactions among plants, pests, diseases and their natural enemies can be exploited to increase crop production and reduce undesirable environmental impacts. Although the understanding of subterranean ecology is rudimentary compared to the perspective aboveground, technologies today vastly reduce traditional obstacles to studying cryptic communities. Here we emphasize advantages to integrating as much as possible the use of these methods in order to leverage the information gained from studying communities of soil organisms. PCR-based approaches to identify and quantify species (real time qPCR and next generation sequencing) greatly expand the ability to investigate food web interactions because there is less need for wide taxonomic expertise within research programs. Improved methods to capture and measure volatiles in the soil atmosphere in situ make it possible to detect and study chemical cues that are critical to communication across trophic levels. The application of SADIE to directly assess rather than infer spatial patterns in belowground agroecosystems has improved the ability to characterize relationships between organisms in space and time. We review selected methodology and use of these tools and describe some of the ways they were integrated to study soil food webs in Florida citrus orchards with the goal of developing new biocontrol approaches.

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Section: Methods For Detecting Herbivore-induced Cues Belowgroundmentioning

confidence: 99%

Analyzing spatial patterns linked to the ecology of herbivores and their natural enemies in the soil

Campos‐Herrera¹,

Ali²,

Díaz³

et al. 2013

Front. Plant Sci.

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“…One dominant herbivore, the leaf beetle larva T. virgata (Coleoptera: Chrysomelidae) is a mobile, selective, specialist whose feeding typically reduces S. altissima's fitness (Meyer 1993(Meyer , 1998Meyer & Root 1993). Trirhabda virgata is sensitive to induced resistance (Hufbauer & Root 2002), exhibits frequent locomotion between host plants (Goodwin & Fahrig 2002) and induces changes in VOC emission and leaf chemistry (Kessler & Morrell 2010;Bode, Halitschke & Kessler 2013;Uesugi, Poelman & Kessler 2013).…”

Section: S T U D Y S Y S T E Mmentioning

confidence: 99%

Plant communication in a widespread goldenrod: keeping herbivores on the move

Morrell

Kessler

2016

Functional Ecology

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Summary Plant communication has been documented in over 35 plant species spanning 16 families to date; however, the underlying mechanisms through which it shapes plants' ecological interactions remain less clear. Using a combination of field/laboratory bioassays, headspace volatile and leaf chemical analyses in tall goldenrod (Solidago altissima), we tested the hypothesis that plant‐to‐plant communication affects the performance, feeding and movement behaviour of herbivores by changing plants' chemical phenotypes. We found that plant communication accelerates herbivore movement between host plants while simultaneously reducing herbivory. This suggests that plant communication can limit herbivore loads by keeping herbivores on the move between host plants. We demonstrate that volatile chemicals emitted from herbivore‐attacked plants are sufficient to explain metabolic responses in and ecological consequences for the exposed neighbour plant. Volatile profiles of beetle (Trirhabda virgata)‐damaged and undamaged plants show substantial compositional differences, especially in sesquiterpene emission, indicating that these differences have the potential to provide neighbouring plants with specific information about herbivores in the vicinity. Despite qualitative and phenological differences in plants' metabolic responses to herbivory‐induced volatile organic compounds (VOCs) and feeding herbivores, herbivores nonetheless respond similarly to directly damaged plants and plants exposed to VOCs from damaged neighbours as if they were of equivalently poor quality. This study suggests that by enlarging the spatial scale at which induced resistance affects the distribution of plant chemical phenotypes in plant populations, VOC‐mediated plant communication alters the movement behaviour and performance of herbivores. A http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/1365-2435.12793/suppinfo is available for this article.

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“…Mainly because of methodological constraints, most of the research on plant VOCs released after insect herbivory has so far been conducted mainly aboveground (reviewed in Kessler and Morrell 2010). However, an increasing number of studies are showing that herbivore induced belowground volatiles might also trigger predator attraction in the soil.…”

Section: Belowground Tritrophic Interactionsmentioning

confidence: 99%