Dissertation Research: The Benefits of Induced Plant Responses to Herbivory

Karban 9701109 在许多植物分类群中广泛记录了食草动物诱导抗性。 研究人员研究了诱导的两个方面：1）诱导反应是否增加植物适应性，以及2）为什么植物采用诱导反应而不是组成性策略。 田间生长的一年生植物将在食草动物的环境中进行实验诱导，并将雄性和雌性适合度组分与未诱导的对照植物进行比较。 此外，三个非排他性的假设诱导反应的好处，组成的策略将进行测试：植物采用诱导反应受益于1）节省分配成本时，不诱导，2）不明显的专业食草动物时，不诱导，和3）有较慢的适应食草动物比植物组成（连续）防御？ 诱导植物反应的成本很少被发现，其好处在很大程度上被忽视了。 本提案试图填补这些空白。 此外，了解诱导防御的生态效益将在保护作物免受减产草食动物的侵害方面具有潜在的意义。

Karban 9701109 Induced resistance following herbivory has been broadly documented across many taxa of plants. The investigators examine two aspects of induction 1) whether induced responses increase plant fitness, and 2) why plants employ induced responses over constitutive strategies. Field-grown annual plants will be experimentally induced in an environment with herbivores and male and female fitness components will be compared to uninduced control plants. In addition, three non-exclusive hypotheses for the benefits of induced responses over constitutive strategies will be tested: Do plants that employ induced responses benefit from 1) saving allocation costs when not induced, 2) not being apparent to specialist herbivores when not induced, and 3) having slower adapting herbivores than plants that are constitutively (continuously) defended? Costs of induced plant responses have rarely been found and the benefits have been largely ignored. This proposal attempts to fill these gaps. Additionally, understanding the ecological benefits of induced defenses will be potentially useful in the protection of crop plants from yield-reducing herbivores.