| Title: | Priming of Arabidopsis resistance to herbivory by insect egg deposition depends on the plant's developmental stage |
| Author(s): | Valsamakis G; Bittner N; Kunze R; Hilker M; Lortzing V; |
| Address: | "Applied Zoology/ Animal Ecology, Institute of Biology, Freie Universitat Berlin, Haderslebener Str. 9, 12163 Berlin, Germany. Applied Genetics, Institute of Biology, Freie Universitat Berlin, Albrecht-Thaer-Weg 6, 14195 Berlin, Germany" |
| ISSN/ISBN: | 1460-2431 (Electronic) 0022-0957 (Print) 0022-0957 (Linking) |
| Abstract: | "While traits of plant resistance to herbivory often change during ontogeny, it is unknown whether the primability of this resistance depends on the plant's developmental stage. Resistance in non-flowering Arabidopsis thaliana against Pieris brassicae larvae is known to be primable by prior egg deposition on leaves. We investigated whether this priming effect is maintained in plants at the flowering stage. Larval performance assays revealed that flowering plants' resistance to herbivory was not primable by egg deposition. Accordingly, transcriptomes of flowering plants showed almost no response to eggs. In contrast, egg deposition on non-flowering plants enhanced the expression of genes induced by subsequent larval feeding. Strikingly, flowering plants showed constitutively high expression levels of these genes. Larvae performed generally worse on flowering than on non-flowering plants, indicating that flowering plants constitutively resist herbivory. Furthermore, we determined the seed weight in regrown plants that had been exposed to eggs and larvae during the non-flowering or flowering stage. Non-flowering plants benefitted from egg priming with a smaller loss in seed yield. The seed yield of flowering plants was unaffected by the treatments, indicating tolerance towards the larvae. Our results show that the primability of anti-herbivore defences in Arabidopsis depends on the plant's developmental stage" |
| Keywords: | Animals *Arabidopsis/metabolism *Butterflies/physiology Herbivory/physiology Larva/physiology Oviposition/physiology Plant Leaves/metabolism herbivory insect eggs larval feeding plant ontogeny plant resistance plant tolerance priming salicylic acid seed y; |
| Notes: | "MedlineValsamakis, Georgios Bittner, Norbert Kunze, Reinhard Hilker, Monika Lortzing, Vivien eng German Research Foundation/ Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't England 2022/05/07 J Exp Bot. 2022 Aug 11; 73(14):4996-5015. doi: 10.1093/jxb/erac199" |
