Freerk Molleman, Manidip Mandal, Anna Sokół-Łętowska, Urszula Walczak, Martin Volf, Soumen Mallick, Martin Moos, Petr Vodrážka, Andreas Prinzing, Priscila Mezzomo
To what extent particular plant defences against herbivorous insects are constitutive or inducible will depend on the costs and benefits in their neighbourhood. Some defensive chemicals in leaves are thought to be costly and hard to produce rapidly, while others, including volatile organic compounds that attract natural enemies, might be cheaper and can be released rapidly. When surrounding tree species are more closely related, trees can face an increased abundance of both specialist herbivores and their parasitoids, potentially increasing the benefits of constitutive and inducible defences...
January 25, 2024: Journal of Chemical Ecology