The Downside of Smelling for Danger: Fitness Costs of Plant Defense Priming via Plant-Plant Volatile Signaling

植物可以检测到环境中空气传播的化学物质，这些化学物质预示着即将到来的压力，并在经历压力之前准备好防御措施。这种现象被称为“启动”。这个项目使用现场观察和受控环境实验来探索指示启动的分子反应模式。由于生态学理论预测引种应该是有成本的，因此引种对植物生长、繁殖和草食率的影响的测量将被用来确定引种的成本和收益。最后，将对有引种和未引种植物的后代进行检查，以确定引种植物的后代是否比未引种植物的后代受到更好的保护。这个项目将继续“百万片叶子计划”，这是一个由首席调查员开发的科学研讨会，通过教授一种经验方法来测量和分析植物及其叶子所遭受的损害，向公民和小学生介绍植物与昆虫的相互作用。参与者收集自己的数据，以探索昆虫消费者对植物施加了多大压力，从而探索植物的化学防御和感官感知可能是如何进化的。这项研究的结果也可以用于诱导农作物对草本植物产生更强的抗性，从而减少对害虫的损失。本研究的主要目的是测试在控制和田间条件下与防御引发相关的适合度成本和分子模式在两个系统发育不同的Rosids：拟南芥和菜豆中。大量证据表明，植物对某些挥发性有机化合物(VOC)的反应是通过“启动”(即准备)它们的防御系统来实现的。然而，指示启动的挥发性相关分子模式(VAMP)还不是很清楚。此外，生态学理论预测，诱导过程应该招致适应成本，但目前关于HIPV介导的启动，支持这一预测的证据有限。该项目将测试这样一种假设，即对HIPV做出反应的植物将招致可测量的适应性成本，其程度将低于诱导抗性的成本，以及HIPV引发的植物将产生指示引发的生理变化的后代(即，它们将被“准备好引发”)。这个项目将解决我们对防御引爆的理解中的一个关键差距。该项目包括博士后、研究生和本科生培训。路易斯维尔大学的本科生将从历史上代表性不足的不同群体中挑选出来。公民科学推广活动包括通过“百万片树叶项目”，参与者学习量化草食动物对树叶的损害，并制定自己的与植物-草食动物相互作用的生态和进化相关的假设。

Plants can detect airborne chemicals in their environment that are indicative of impending stress and prepare defenses prior to experiencing the stress. This phenomenon has been termed "priming". This project explores the molecular patterns of response indicative of priming using both field observations and controlled environment experiments. Since ecological theory predicts that there should be a cost to priming, measurements of the effects of priming on plant growth, reproduction and rates of herbivory will be used to determine both the costs and benefits of priming. Finally, the progeny of primed and non-primed plants will be examined to determine if the offspring of primed plants are better defended than offspring from non-primed plants. This project will continue the "Million Leaf Project", which is a science workshop developed by the lead investigator to introduce citizens and grade school students to plant-insect interactions by teaching an experiential approach to both measure and analyze the damage experienced by plants and their leaves. Participants collect their own data to explore how much pressure insect consumers put on plants, and therefore how plant chemical defenses and sensory perception might have evolved. The results of this research may also be applied to inducing greater resistance to herbivory in agricultural crops, thereby reducing losses to pests.The principle objective of this study is to test fitness costs and molecular patterns associated with defense priming under controlled and field conditions in two phylogenetically disparate Rosids: Arabidopsis thaliana and Phaseolus lunatus. Overwhelming evidence exists that plants respond to certain volatile organic compounds (VOCs) such as herbivore-induced plant volatiles (HIPVs) from their neighbors or distal parts of themselves by "priming" (i.e., preparing) their defenses. However, the volatile-associated molecular patterns (VAMPs) indicative of priming are not well known. Moreover, ecological theory predicts that induced processes should incur fitness costs, but there is currently limited evidence to support this prediction with respect to HIPV-mediated priming. The project will test the hypothesis that plants responding to HIPVs will incur measurable fitness costs that will be less severe than costs of induced resistance, and that HIPV-primed plants will produce offspring with altered physiology indicative of priming (i.e., they will be "Primed to be Primed"). This project will address a key gap in our understanding of defense priming. The project includes post-doctoral, graduate and undergraduate training. Undergraduates will be required from a diverse population of historically underrepresented groups at the University of Louisville. Citizen science outreach is included through the "Million Leaf Project" where participants learn to quantify herbivore damage to leaves and develop their own hypotheses related to the ecology and evolution of plant-herbivore interactions.