Intraspecific variation in a generalist herbivore accounts for differential induction and impact of host plant defences.

ABSTRACT: Plants and herbivores are thought to be engaged in a coevolutionary arms race: rising frequencies of plants with anti-herbivore defences exert pressure on herbivores to resist or circumvent these defences and vice versa. Owing to its frequency-dependent character, the arms race hypothesis predicts that herbivores exhibit genetic variation for traits that determine how they deal with the defences of a given host plant phenotype. Here, we show the existence of distinct variation within a single herbivore species, the spider mite Tetranychus urticae, in traits that lead to resistance or susceptibility to jasmonate (JA)-dependent defences of a host plant but also in traits responsible for induction or repression of JA defences. We characterized three distinct lines of T. urticae that different

SUBMITTER: Kant MR 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC2596823 | biostudies-literature | 2008 Feb

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature