| Title: | Defense of Scots pine against sawfly eggs (Diprion pini) is primed by exposure to sawfly sex pheromones |
| Author(s): | Bittner N; Hundacker J; Achotegui-Castells A; Anderbrant O; Hilker M; |
| Address: | "Dahlem Centre of Plant Sciences, Institute of Biology, Freie Universitat Berlin, 12163 Berlin, Germany. Centre de Recerca Ecologica i Aplicacions Forestals (CREAF), Barcelona, 08193 Catalonia, Spain. Global Ecology Unit, CREAF-Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Cientificas, Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona, Barcelona, 08193 Catalonia, Spain. Department of Biology, Lund University, 223 62 Lund, Sweden. Dahlem Centre of Plant Sciences, Institute of Biology, Freie Universitat Berlin, 12163 Berlin, Germany; monika.hilker@fu-berlin.de" |
| ISSN/ISBN: | 1091-6490 (Electronic) 0027-8424 (Print) 0027-8424 (Linking) |
| Abstract: | "Plants respond to insect infestation with defenses targeting insect eggs on their leaves and the feeding insects. Upon perceiving cues indicating imminent herbivory, such as damage-induced leaf odors emitted by neighboring plants, they are able to prime their defenses against feeding insects. Yet it remains unknown whether plants can amplify their defenses against insect eggs by responding to cues indicating imminent egg deposition. Here, we tested the hypothesis that a plant strengthens its defenses against insect eggs by responding to insect sex pheromones. Our study shows that preexposure of Pinus sylvestris to pine sawfly sex pheromones reduces the survival rate of subsequently laid sawfly eggs. Exposure to pheromones does not significantly affect the pine needle water content, but results in increased needle hydrogen peroxide concentrations and increased expression of defense-related pine genes such as SOD (superoxide dismutase), LOX (lipoxygenase), PAL (phenylalanine ammonia lyase), and PR-1 (pathogenesis related protein 1) after egg deposition. These results support our hypothesis that plant responses to sex pheromones emitted by an herbivorous insect can boost plant defensive responses to insect egg deposition, thus highlighting the ability of a plant to mobilize its defenses very early against an initial phase of insect attack, the egg deposition" |
| Keywords: | Animals Female Herbivory/physiology Host-Parasite Interactions/*immunology Hydrogen Peroxide/immunology/metabolism Hymenoptera/*pathogenicity/physiology Male Odorants Oviposition/immunology Ovum/*immunology Pinus sylvestris/*immunology/parasitology Plant; |
| Notes: | "MedlineBittner, Norbert Hundacker, Janik Achotegui-Castells, Ander Anderbrant, Olle Hilker, Monika eng Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't 2019/11/22 Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2019 Dec 3; 116(49):24668-24675. doi: 10.1073/pnas.1910991116. Epub 2019 Nov 20" |
