Asynchrony between Host Plant and Insects-Defoliator within a Tritrophic System: The Role of Herbivore Innate Immunity.

ABSTRACT: The effects of asynchrony in the phenology of spring-feeding insect-defoliators and their host plants on insects' fitness, as well as the importance of this effect for the population dynamics of outbreaking species of insects, is a widespread and well-documented phenomenon. However, the spreading of this phenomenon through the food chain, and especially those mechanisms operating this spreading, are still unclear. In this paper, we study the effect of seasonally declined leafquality (estimated in terms of phenolics and nitrogen content) on herbivore fitness, immune parameters and resistance against pathogen by using the silver birch Betula pendula--gypsy moth Lymantria dispar--nucleopolyhedrovirus as the tritrophic system. We show that a phenological mismatch induced by the delay in the em

SUBMITTER: Martemyanov VV 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4482610 | biostudies-literature | 2015

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature