Volatile Semiochemical Mediated Plant Defense in Cereals: A Novel Strategy for Crop Protection

Abstract

Plants have evolved highly intriguing ways of defending themselves against insect attacks, including through emission of defense volatiles. These volatiles serve the plant's defense by directly repelling phytophagous insects and/or indirectly through attracting natural enemies antagonistic to the herbivores. Several laboratory studies established the potential of improving plant resistance against insect attacks by manipulating the plant-derived volatile semiochemicals emissions. Yet, more efforts need to be conducted to translate the promising laboratory studies to fight economically-important crop pests under real field conditions. This is needed to address an increasing demand for alternative pest control options driven by ecological and environmental costs associated with the use of broad-spectrum insecticides. The practical examples discussed in this review paper demonstrate the real prospect of exploiting an inducible and constitutive plant volatile semiochemicals for developing novel and ecologically-sustainable pest management strategies to protect cereal crops from damaging insect pests.

Electroantennographic and olfactory responses of Quadrastichus mendeli to eucalyptus volatiles induced by the gall‐forming insect Leptocybe invasa

“…Because it was found that volatiles have an important role in host localization and the parasitic and predation behavior of parasitoids to pests, 58,59 these volatiles are regarded as potential tools with which to enhance the recruitment of parasitoids for biological control. 60 Importantly, the blend of plant volatiles has an important role in biological control, and provides more information for parasitoids than the individual components in a tritrophic system. 61 The effectiveness of using volatile mixtures rather than single compounds has been tested in field and laboratory experiments.…”

Responses of the fall armyworm (Spodoptera frugiperda) to different host plants: Implications for its management strategy

“…[5][6][7][8] Plant-derived volatile semiochemicals can be exploited to manipulate insect pest behaviour in an integrated pest management strategy. 9 Previous studies demonstrated the attractiveness of plant volatiles to different noctuid moths. For example, volatile compounds released from pigeon pea (Cajanus cajan) and chickpea (Cicer arietinum) were shown to be attractive to Helicoverpa armigera moths in the laboratory and field.…”

“…Plant‐derived volatile semiochemicals can be exploited to manipulate insect pest behaviour in an integrated pest management strategy 9 . Previous studies demonstrated the attractiveness of plant volatiles to different noctuid moths.…”

Components and composition of active volatiles attract on Diorhabda tarsalis (Coleoptera: Chrysomelidae) from Glycyrrhiza uralensis (Rosales: Leguminoseae)

“…Diorhabda tarsalis can locate G. uralensis by responding to the volatile chemicals released from the plant. Conversely, many plants release defensive substances after insect damage (Tamiru and Khan, 2017) that directly repel pests or attract the pest's natural enemies (Lucchi et al, 2017;Salamanca et al, 2019;Rim et al, 2020). For example, 4-oxo-(E)-2-hexenal emitted from Tamarix spp.…”