Eur. J. Entomol. 91 (1): 53-56, 1994
Resource deprival as an anti-herbivore strategy in plants, with particular reference to aphids
- N/A
It is generally considered that many specialist insects, such as aphids, have overcome chemical barriers to successful feeding and turned them to their own advantage as host recognition cues and phagostimulants. It is suggested that plants may counter-respond to the presence of specialised insect herbivores by manipulating recognition cues and phagostimulants to the detriment of the insect. One might expect this to involve the plant depriving the insect of access to these chemicals at critical periods in the insect's life cycle. Evidence in support of the 'resource deprival' hypothesis is presented from work carried out on the large pine aphid, Cinara pinea. Here, taxifolin, a possible phagostimulant, is withdrawn from the phloem to the outer shoot tissues in midsummer, with a subsequent decline in aphid growth and survival.
Keywords: Aphids, chemical defence, herbivore, pine aphid, taxifolin, resource deprival
Accepted: February 10, 1994; Published: April 15, 1994 Show citation
This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC BY 4.0), which permits use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original publication is properly cited. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.