Multitrophic Manipulation of Herbivore Perception by Plants

植物不断受到食草昆虫的攻击。虽然植物可以通过各种防御反应来保护自己，但它们也可以从食草昆虫的天敌（包括拟寄生虫和病原体）那里得到保护。该项目利用两种具有经济价值的作物（番茄和玉米）、两种新世界最具破坏性的害虫（秋粘虫和玉米耳虫）和两种害虫的主要天敌（拟寄生虫和杆状病毒），研究植物、食草昆虫及其天敌之间的三方相互作用。拟寄生虫和杆状病毒存在于自然界中，也是农业中防治害虫的生物防治剂。从这个项目中获得的知识可以通过改进生物防治剂与开发抗虫害作物的结合，对可持续虫害管理的信息提供广泛的影响。pi将指导不同的学生群体，将多营养互动的概念纳入大学教材，为家庭学生和广大教育界开发免费的多营养互动在线模块，并在每年的大昆虫博览会上向数千名小学生介绍这些概念。植物通过口腔分泌物中的激发子或草食相关分子模式（HAMPs）识别昆虫食草动物，从而引发植物的防御反应。这些研究没有考虑到田间昆虫经常被杆状病毒寄生或感染。植物防御可以降低昆虫作为第三营养级资源的质量。虽然类寄生物（及其共生的多dna病毒）和杆状病毒可以操纵宿主的免疫系统，但它们是否也可以改变宿主唾液HAMPs和效应器的产生从未被研究过。该项目的目的是：(1)确定类寄生虫/多核糖核酸病毒和杆状病毒是否调节毛虫唾液HAMPs和效应物的合成和活性；(2)确定杆状病毒和类寄生虫/多核糖核酸病毒是否操纵植物防御以达到自己的目的。第三个营养等级将包括专门型和通才型，因为据推测，专门型天敌对其宿主的生理和行为施加了比通才型更大的控制。因此，专家可能对植物防御的表达有更大的影响。分子和生化分析和生活史测量将用于解决的目标。在Dawkin的扩展表型模型中，一个生物体中的基因对另一个生物体具有表型效应，拟寄生虫和杆状病毒不仅可以控制宿主的免疫系统，还可以控制植物的免疫系统，这可能是已知的最广泛的表型之一。

Plants are under constant attack by insect herbivores. While plants can protect themselves using a wide-array of defensive responses, they can also receive protection from the natural enemies of insect herbivores, including parasitoids and pathogens. The project investigates the three-way interaction between plants, insect herbivores and their natural enemies using two economically valuable crop plants (tomato and corn), two of the most devastating insect pests in the New World (fall armyworm and corn earworm) and two key groups natural enemies of the pests (parasitoids and baculoviruses). Parasitoids and baculoviruses occur in nature and are also used as biological control agents to control pest insects in agriculture. Knowledge gained from this project may have widespread impacts on informing sustainable pest management by improving the integration of biological control agents with the development of pest resistant crop plants. The PIs will mentor a diverse group of students, incorporate concepts of multitrophic interactions into college teaching materials, develop cost-free online modules on multitrophic interactions for homeschoolers and the educational community at large, and reach thousands of elementary school children each year in the Great Insect Fair with these concepts.Plants recognize insect herbivores through elicitors or herbivore-associated molecular patterns (HAMPs) in their oral secretions, which triggers plant defensive responses. These studies have been conducted without considering that insects in the field are often parasitized or infected by baculoviruses. Plant defenses can reduce the quality of insects as a resource for the third trophic level. While parasitoids (and their symbiotic polydnaviruses) and baculoviruses can manipulate the immune systems of their hosts, whether they can also alter the host's production of salivary HAMPs and effectors has never been investigated. The aims of this project are (1) to determine if parasitoids/polydnaviruses and baculoviruses modulate the synthesis and activity of caterpillar salivary HAMPs and effectors and (2) determine whether baculoviruses and parasitoids/polydnaviruses manipulate plant defenses to their own benefit. The third trophic level will consist of both specialists and generalists because it has been postulated that specialist natural enemies exert greater control over the physiology and behavior of their hosts than generalist species. Thus specialists may have a stronger influence on the expression of plant defenses. Molecular and biochemical assays and life-history measurements will be used to address the aims. In the Dawkin's model of the extended phenotype, whereby a gene in one organism has phenotypic effects on another organism, the potential of parasitoids and baculoviruses to exert control over not just their host's immune systems, but also control over the plant's immune system could represent one of the most extended phenotypes known.