| Title: | Trade-off among different anti-herbivore defence strategies along an altitudinal gradient |
| Author(s): | Dostalek T; Rokaya MB; Marsik P; Rezek J; Skuhrovec J; Pavela R; Munzbergova Z; |
| Address: | "Institute of Botany, The Czech Academy of Sciences, Zamek 1, Pruhonice, CZ-25243, Czech Republic Department of Botany, Faculty of Science, Charles University in Prague, Benatska 2, Prague, CZ-12801, Czech Republic tomas.dostalek@gmail.com. Institute of Botany, The Czech Academy of Sciences, Zamek 1, Pruhonice, CZ-25243, Czech Republic Department of Biodiversity Research, Global Change Research Institute, The Czech Academy of Sciences, Belidla 4a, Brno, CZ-60300, Czech Republic. Institute of Experimental Botany, The Czech Academy of Sciences, Rozvojova 313, Prague, CZ-16502, Czech Republic. Crop Research Institute, Drnovska 507, Prague, CZ-16106, Czech Republic. Institute of Botany, The Czech Academy of Sciences, Zamek 1, Pruhonice, CZ-25243, Czech Republic Department of Botany, Faculty of Science, Charles University in Prague, Benatska 2, Prague, CZ-12801, Czech Republic" |
| ISSN/ISBN: | 2041-2851 (Print) 2041-2851 (Electronic) |
| Abstract: | "The type and intensity of plant-herbivore interactions are likely to be altered under climate change as a consequence of differential dispersal rates of plants and their herbivores. Here, we studied variation in herbivore damage on Salvia nubicola in the field and compared its growth and defence strategies against herbivores in controlled conditions using seeds from populations along a broad altitudinal gradient. Our work is one of the first studies to simultaneously measure complex intraspecific variation in plant growth, direct and indirect defences as well as plant tolerance (ability to regrow) as a consequence of herbivore attack simulated by clipping. In the field, we found that plants experienced higher herbivore pressure in lower altitudes. In the greenhouse, plants grown from seeds collected in lower-altitude populations grew better and produced a higher content of phenolic compounds (direct defence) and volatile organic compounds (indirect defence) in response to simulated herbivory. However, there were no differences in tolerance and effect of S. nubicola extracts on the model generalist herbivore Spodoptera littoralis (direct defence) along the altitudinal gradient. Although we found that S. nubicola developed a range of defence strategies, the strategies do not seem to be used simultaneously in all populations even though most of them are correlated with altitudinal gradient. Our finding is in agreement with the current knowledge that co-expression of multiple defences might be costly for a plant, since investment in defensive traits is assumed to reduce the resource availability for growth and reproduction. Our study thus shows the importance of simultaneous study of different defence strategies since understanding these trade-offs could be necessary for detecting the mechanisms by which plants are able to cope with future climate change" |
| Keywords: | Climate change Lamiaceae VOCs defence strategies elevation greenhouse experiment insect herbivory plant-animal interactions; |
| Notes: | "PubMed-not-MEDLINEDostalek, Tomas Rokaya, Maan Bahadur Marsik, Petr Rezek, Jan Skuhrovec, Jiri Pavela, Roman Munzbergova, Zuzana eng England 2016/05/14 AoB Plants. 2016 Jul 11; 8:plw026. doi: 10.1093/aobpla/plw026. Print 2016" |
