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Phytochemical Diversity and Interactions with Herbivores
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Phytochemical Diversity and Interactions with Herbivores

A special issue of Plants (ISSN 2223-7747). This special issue belongs to the section "Phytochemistry".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (31 August 2024) | Viewed by 2604

Special Issue Editors

Dr. Andrea E. Glassmire

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Department of Biological Sciences, Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge, LA, USA
Interests: chemical ecology; community ecology; plant–insect interactions; agroecology; wetland ecology; biocontrol
Prof. Dr. Michael J. Stout

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Department of Entomology, Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge, LA 70803, USA
Interests: chemical ecology; insect physiology; plant–insect interactions; host–plant resistance; pest management
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

For over a century, biologists have asked why plants produce such large diversities of chemical compounds and hypothesized about their role in plant–insect interactions. Recent advances in metabolomics have enabled ecologists to measure large numbers of compounds simultaneously and efficiently, resulting in major quantitative developments (a measure of phytochemical diversity). Outstanding advances have been made in elucidating phytochemical diversity as a complex phenotype that can predict defensibility within plants as it relates to interactions with herbivores. Despite these advances, more progress is needed to achieve a nuanced view of phytochemical diversity and its interactions with herbivores, community dynamics, and ecosystem processes. Some specific gaps in this literature include: understanding the different components of phytochemical diversity (i.e., richness, evenness, and dissimilarity); the macro- and micro-evolutionary scale of phytochemical diversity; linking molecular structure to function; the identification of gene function (as it relates to phytochemical diversity); utilizing or manipulating phytochemical diversity to protect crop plants from herbivores or manage invasive species; and quantifying the metabolomic changes along environmental clines.

For this Special Issue, articles (original research papers, perspectives, hypotheses, opinions, reviews, modelling approaches, and methods) may focus all aspects of phytochemical diversity, but manuscripts describing theoretical or experimental studies are particularly welcome.

Dr. Andrea E. Glassmire
Prof. Dr. Michael J. Stout
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Plants is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2700 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • phytochemical diversity
  • herbivore
  • tritrophic
  • chemical ecology
  • plant secondary metabolites
  • plant defense

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Published Papers (3 papers)

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Research

12 pages, 1889 KiB  
Article
Silicon Effects Depend upon Insect Herbivore Guild and Has Limited Influence on Gall-Inducing Insects of Bauhinia brevipes
by Guilherme Ramos Demetrio, Henrique Venâncio, Janaina Correa Batista and Jean Carlos Santos
Plants 2025, 14(2), 250; https://doi.org/10.3390/plants14020250 - 17 Jan 2025
Viewed by 519
Abstract
Silicon (Si) is a widely recognized element in plant defense, often enhancing resistance to herbivory by strengthening cell walls and deterring feeding by external herbivores. However, its impact on internal, endophytic herbivores, such as gall-inducing insects, remains underexplored. This study investigates the role [...] Read more.
Silicon (Si) is a widely recognized element in plant defense, often enhancing resistance to herbivory by strengthening cell walls and deterring feeding by external herbivores. However, its impact on internal, endophytic herbivores, such as gall-inducing insects, remains underexplored. This study investigates the role of silicon in Bauhinia brevipes, focusing on its effects on herbivory by insects. We hypothesize that while silicon strengthens plant tissues and reduces feeding by external herbivores, it may have a limited effect on internal feeders, such as gall-inducing insects. Our results indicate that silicon accumulation in leaves significantly reduces herbivory by chewing insects but has no direct effect on the occurrence of gall-inducing insects. Silicon content in galled tissues was lower compared to healthy leaves, suggesting that gall-inducing insects may manipulate silicon distribution to mitigate its defensive effects. Our results indicate that hypersensitivity reactions were positively influenced by silicon, highlighting the role of this element in enhancing localized defense mechanisms. Our findings reveal silicon’s tissue-specific roles in plant defense, emphasizing the need for more research on its nuanced interactions with endophytic herbivores and implications for ecological applications. This research contributes to the literature on silicon’s multifaceted role in plant–herbivore interactions and its potential applications in sustainable pest management. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Phytochemical Diversity and Interactions with Herbivores)
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12 pages, 1574 KiB  
Article
Evolutionary Trajectories of Shoots vs. Roots: Plant Volatile Metabolomes Are Richer but Less Structurally Diverse Belowground in the Tropical Tree Genus Protium
by Katherine D. Holmes, Paul V. A. Fine, Italo Mesones, Julieta Alvarez-Manjarrez, Andressa M. Venturini, Kabir G. Peay and Diego Salazar
Plants 2025, 14(2), 225; https://doi.org/10.3390/plants14020225 - 15 Jan 2025
Viewed by 761
Abstract
The breadth and depth of plant leaf metabolomes have been implicated in key interactions with plant enemies aboveground. In particular, divergence in plant species chemical composition—amongst neighbors, relatives, or both—is often suggested as a means of escape from insect herbivore enemies. Plants also [...] Read more.
The breadth and depth of plant leaf metabolomes have been implicated in key interactions with plant enemies aboveground. In particular, divergence in plant species chemical composition—amongst neighbors, relatives, or both—is often suggested as a means of escape from insect herbivore enemies. Plants also experience strong pressure from enemies such as belowground pathogens; however, little work has been carried out to examine the evolutionary trajectories of species’ specialized chemistries in both roots and leaves. Here, we examine the GCMS detectable phytochemistry (for simplicity, hereafter referred to as specialized volatile metabolites) of the tropical tree genus Protium, testing the hypothesis that phenotypic divergence will be weaker belowground compared to aboveground due to more limited dispersal by enemies. We found that, after controlling for differences in chemical richness, roots expressed less structurally diverse compounds than leaves, despite having higher numbers of specialized volatile metabolites, and that species’ phylogenetic distance was only positively correlated with compound structural distance in roots, not leaves. Taken together, our results suggest that root specialized volatile metabolites exhibit significantly less phenotypic divergence than leaf specialized metabolites and may be under relaxed selection pressure from enemies belowground. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Phytochemical Diversity and Interactions with Herbivores)
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21 pages, 2073 KiB  
Article
The Effects of Anthropogenic Stressors on Above- and Belowground Phytochemical Diversity of the Wetland Grass, Phragmites australis
by Andrea E. Glassmire, Ana L. Salgado, Rodrigo Diaz, Joseph Johnston, Laura A. Meyerson, Joshua S. Snook and James T. Cronin
Plants 2024, 13(22), 3133; https://doi.org/10.3390/plants13223133 - 7 Nov 2024
Viewed by 712
Abstract
Coastal wetlands face threats from climate change-induced flooding and biological invasions. Plants respond to these stressors through changes in their phytochemical metabolome, but it is unclear whether stressors affecting one tissue compartment (e.g., leaves) create vulnerabilities in others (e.g., roots) or elicit similar [...] Read more.
Coastal wetlands face threats from climate change-induced flooding and biological invasions. Plants respond to these stressors through changes in their phytochemical metabolome, but it is unclear whether stressors affecting one tissue compartment (e.g., leaves) create vulnerabilities in others (e.g., roots) or elicit similar responses across tissues. Additionally, responses to multiple simultaneous stressors remain poorly understood due to the focus on individual metabolites in past studies. This study aims to elucidate how the phytochemical metabolome of three Phragmites australis (Cav.) lineages, common in the Mississippi River Delta, responds to flooding and infestation by the non-native scale insect Nipponaclerda biwakoensis (Kuwana). Among these lineages, one is non-native and poses a threat to North American wetlands. Results indicate that metabolomic responses are highly specific, varying with lineage, tissue type, stressor type, and the presence of multiple stressors. Notably, the non-native lineage displayed high chemical evenness, while the other two showed stressor-dependent responses. The 10 most informative features identified by a machine learning model showed less than 1% overlap with known metabolites linked to water and herbivory stress, underscoring gaps in our understanding of plant responses to environmental stressors. Our metabolomic approach offers a valuable tool for identifying candidate plant genotypes for wetland restoration. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Phytochemical Diversity and Interactions with Herbivores)
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