Health & Environmental Research Online (HERO)


Print Feedback Export to File
4287098 
Book/Book Chapter 
BVOC-mediated plant-herbivore interactions 
Trowbridge, AM; Stoy, PC 
2013 
Springer 
New York, NY 
5 
21-46 
English 
is a chapter of 4287095 Biology, controls and models of tree volatile organic compound emissions
Plants release unique blends of biogenic volatile organic compounds (BVOCs) into the atmosphere, part of a silent language used to communicate with other organisms in their community. Within this high traffic chemical environment, plants and insects, among other organisms, are receiving, processing, modifying, and responding to information conveyed through varying suites of molecules. Because plants and insects are part of an integrative complex of food web relationships, one common topic of conversation is defence. Plants maintain a baseline level of BVOC emissions as a bottom-up constitutive defence, emitting compounds that act as repellents or deterrents to feeding and/or egg deposition by herbivores. Due to the autonomy of their attackers, plants can also employ an indirect top-down defence strategy, releasing induced volatiles in response to feeding that attract the natural enemies of their herbivore attackers, such as predators and parasitoids. Both bottom-up and top-down BVOC-mediated strategies have important consequences for herbivore preference, performance, and survival with even broader ecological and evolutionary consequences for tritrophic interactions. In this chapter we discuss how constitutive BVOCs mediate aspects of plant defence within a hierarchical spatiotemporal framework. Next we bring to light some of the most recent research on oviposition- and herbivore-induced BVOC synthesis and subsequent effects on the recruitment of natural enemies. We follow up by discussing the ecological effects of induced BVOCs in the context of multiple herbivores, expression from various plant organs, time-lags associated with BVOC induction, and heterogeneity within the infochemical environment. The critical feature of insect learning is described and we highlight some of the major evolutionary implications of BVOC-mediated plant defence syndromes that rely on the unique timing of events at the biochemical, atmospheric, organismal, and community scales. 
Natural Enemy; Indirect Defence; Green Leaf Volatile; Tritrophic Interaction; Belowground Herbivore 
Niinemets, Ü; Monson, RK 
Tree Physiology 
9789400766051