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Caterpillar-Induced Volatile Emissions in Cotton: The Relative Importance of Damage and Insect-Derived Factors.

ABSTRACT: In response to herbivore attack, plants release large amounts of volatiles that can serve as attractants for the natural enemies of the attacking herbivores. Such responses are typically triggered by damage- and insect-associated factors. Cotton plants are somewhat peculiar because they release specific blends of volatiles in two waves in response to caterpillar attack. They first emit constitutively stored volatile compounds, and after about 24 h a second wave that includes various de novo synthesized compounds. The relative importance of damage-associated and insect associated-factors in this induction of cotton volatile emissions is not yet fully clear. We evaluated how cotton plants respond to mechanical damage and to the application of the oral secretion from the generalist lepidopteran pest Spodoptera exigua, by measuring the local and systemic emissions of volatile compounds from their leaves. Our results confirm that cotton plants respond to damage-associated molecular patterns (DAMPs) as well as to herbivore-associated molecular patterns (HAMPs) present in the caterpillars' oral secretion. Interestingly, a stronger response was observed for cotton plants that were treated with oral secretion from cotton-fed caterpillars than those fed on maize. We tested the possibility that volicitin, a common fatty acid-derived elicitor in caterpillar regurgitant plays a role in this difference. Volicitin and volicitin-like compounds were detected in equal amounts in the oral secretion of S. exigua fed on either cotton or maize leaves. We conclude that other elicitors must be involved. The identification of these eliciting cues is expected to contribute to the development of novel strategies to enhance the resistance of cotton plants to insect pests.

SUBMITTER: Arce CM

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8369242 | biostudies-literature |

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Project description:Plant perception of insect feeding involves integration of the multiple signals involved: wounding, oral secretions, and substrate borne feeding vibrations. Although plant responses to wounding and oral secretions have been studied, little is known about how signals from the rapidly transmitted vibrations caused by chewing insect feeding are integrated to produce effects on plant defenses. In this study, we examined whether 24 h of insect feeding vibrations caused changes in levels of phytohormones and volatile organic compounds (VOCs) produced by leaves of Arabidopsis thaliana when they were subjected to just feeding vibrations or feeding vibrations and wounding + methyl jasmonate (MeJA), compared to their respective controls of silent sham or wounding + MeJA. We showed that feeding vibrations alone caused a decrease in the concentrations of most phytohormones, compared to those found in control plants receiving no vibrations. When feeding vibrations were combined with wounding and application of MeJA, the results were more complex. For hormones whose levels were induced by wounding and MeJA (jasmonic acid, indole-3-butyric acid), the addition of feeding vibrations caused an even larger response. If the level of hormone was unchanged by wounding and MeJA compared with controls, then the addition of feeding vibrations had little effect. The levels of some VOCs were influenced by the treatments. Feeding vibrations alone caused an increase in β-ionone and decrease in methyl salicylate, and wounding + MeJA alone caused a decrease in benzaldehyde and methyl salicylate. When feeding vibrations were combined with wounding + MeJA, the effects on β-ionone and methyl salicylate were similar to those seen with feeding vibrations alone, and levels of benzaldehyde remained low as seen with wounding + MeJA alone. The widespread downregulation of plant hormones observed in this study is also seen in plant responses to cold, suggesting that membrane fluidity changes and/or downstream signaling may be common to both phenomena.

Dataset Information

Caterpillar-Induced Volatile Emissions in Cotton: The Relative Importance of Damage and Insect-Derived Factors.

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