Genome-enabled research on the ecology of plant-insect interactions.

Plants and insects comprise the most species-rich lineages of multicellular eukaryotes. Most insects are herbivores, and generally have specific adaptations for feeding on a very limited group of evolutionarily or biochemically related host plants in their natural habitats. Coevolutionary interactions (reciprocal natural selection) between plants and insects are hypothesized to be the crucible for generating the majority of terrestrial organismic diversity. Therefore, understanding the mechanistic and evolutionary basis of plant-insect interactions provides insight into the processes that have led to the great diversification of metazoan life. Future research on the ecology of plant-insect interactions will be strongly influenced by recent advances in molecular biology, in particular the rapidly dropping price of DNA sequencing.