Microbial Brokers of Insect-Plant Interactions Revisited

Plant polyploidy and insect/plant interactions.

We used flow cytometry and extensive geographic surveys of herbivore attack to test whether repeated evolution of autotetraploidy in the perennial herb Heuchera grossulariifolia Rydb. (Saxifragaceae) has created evolutionary barriers to attack by the specialist moth herbivore Greya politella (Prodoxidae). We found that the moth has colonized tetraploid as well as diploid populations, has coloni...

Plant–insect Interactions and Pollution

On Mathematical Modelling of Plant-Insect Interactions

Plants and Insects are studied since decades, but, most of the time, separately. In Agronomy, plants are studied in order to improve crop yields while insects are studied in order to control their (negative or positive) impacts on crop yields. It is well known that plants and insects are always in interaction but, surprisingly, they are very few mathematical models of these interactions. For in...

Plant-insect interactions: molecular approaches to insect resistance.

Recent advances in our understanding of induced responses in plants and their regulation, brought about by a revolution in molecular biology, have re-focused attention on the potential exploitation of endogenous resistance mechanisms for crop protection. The future goal of crop biotechnology is thus to engineer a durable, multimechanistic resistance to insect pests through an understanding of t...

PLANT–MICROBE–INSECT INTERACTIONS: Cytokinins as key regulators in plant–microbe–insect interactions: connecting plant growth and defence

David Giron*, Enric Frago, Ga€ elle Glevarec, Corn e M. J. Pieterse and Marcel Dicke Institut de Recherche sur la Biologie de l’Insecte, UMR 7261, CNRS – Universit e Franc ois-Rabelais, Tours, France; Department of Zoology, University of Oxford, South Parks Road, Oxford, OX1 3PS UK; Biomol ecules et Biotechnologies V eg etales, EA 2106 Universit e Franc ois-Rabelais, Tours, France; Plant-Microb...