scholarly journals Domestication impacts on plant–herbivore interactions: a meta-analysis

2017 ◽  
Vol 372 (1712) ◽  
pp. 20160034 ◽  
Author(s):  
Susan R. Whitehead ◽  
Martin M. Turcotte ◽  
Katja Poveda
Keyword(s):  
Species Interactions ◽  
Food Systems ◽  
Crop Yields ◽  
Meta Analysis ◽  
Plant Defence ◽  
Reproductive Organs ◽  
Negative Effects ◽  
Theoretical Understanding ◽  
Herbivore Interactions ◽  
Plant Herbivore

For millennia, humans have imposed strong selection on domesticated crops, resulting in drastically altered crop phenotypes compared with wild ancestors. Crop yields have increased, but a long-held hypothesis is that domestication has also unintentionally decreased plant defences against herbivores. To test this hypothesis, we conducted a phylogenetically controlled meta-analysis comparing insect herbivore resistance and putative plant defence traits between crops and their wild relatives. Our database included 2098 comparisons made across 73 crops in 89 studies. We found that domestication consistently reduced plant resistance to herbivores, although the magnitude of the effects varied across plant organs and depended on how resistance was measured. However, domestication had no consistent effects on the specific plant defence traits underlying resistance, including secondary metabolites and physical feeding barriers. The values of these traits sometimes increased and sometimes decreased during domestication. Consistent negative effects of domestication were observed only when defence traits were measured in reproductive organs or in the plant organ that was harvested. These results highlight the complexity of evolution under domestication and the need for an improved theoretical understanding of the mechanisms through which agronomic selection can influence the species interactions that impact both the yield and sustainability of our food systems. This article is part of the themed issue ‘Human influences on evolution, and the ecological and societal consequences’.

scholarly journals A prominent role for precision composting in sustainable agriculture

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Shuaixiang Zhao ◽  
Susanne Schmidt ◽  
Hongjian Gao ◽  
Tingyu Li ◽  
Xinping Chen ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Food Systems ◽  
Crop Yields ◽  
Meta Analysis ◽  
Salt Content ◽  
Content Management ◽  
Nutrient Ratios ◽  
Sustainable Food ◽  
Annual Carbon ◽  
Mitigate Climate Change ◽  
Uncertain Outcomes

Abstract Compost use in agriculture has the potential to increase the productivity and sustainability of food systems and to mitigate climate change. But the use of diverse compost types in unsuitable biophysical conditions cause uncertain outcomes for crop yields, soil organic carbon (SOC) and nitrous oxide (N2O) emissions. Here, we performed a global meta-analysis with over 2000 observations to determine whether a Precision Composting Strategy (PCS) that aligns suitable composts and application methods with target crop and environment can advance sustainable food production. Eleven key predictors of compost (carbon-to-nutrient ratios, pH, salt content), management (nitrogen supply) and biophysical settings (crop type, soil texture, SOC, pH, temperature, rainfall) determined 80% of the effect on crop yield, SOC, and N2O emissions. We estimate that a PCS could increase global cereal production by 354.5 Tg annually, approximately 1.7-times Africa’s current cereal yield. We further estimate that annual Carbon sequestration could increase by 170.4 Tg Carbon, approximately 20% of the global potential of croplands. This points to a central role of PCS in current and emerging agriculture consistent with the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals.

scholarly journals Is escalation of plant defence a common macroevolutionary outcome of plant-herbivore interactions?

2015 ◽  
Vol 208 (3) ◽  
pp. 635-637 ◽  
Author(s):  
Juan Núñez-Farfán ◽  
Eunice Kariñho-Betancourt
Keyword(s):  
Plant Defence ◽  
Herbivore Interactions ◽  
Plant Herbivore

scholarly journals Interaction intimacy organizes networks of antagonistic interactions in different ways

2013 ◽  
Vol 10 (78) ◽  
pp. 20120649 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mathias M. Pires ◽  
Paulo R. Guimarães
Keyword(s):  
Species Interactions ◽  
Assembly Rules ◽  
Major Question ◽  
Predator Prey ◽  
Herbivore Interactions ◽  
Plant Herbivore ◽  
Host Parasite ◽  
Different Levels ◽  
Antagonistic Interactions

Interaction intimacy, the degree of biological integration between interacting individuals, shapes the ecology and evolution of species interactions. A major question in ecology is whether interaction intimacy also shapes the way interactions are organized within communities. We combined analyses of network structure and food web models to test the role of interaction intimacy in determining patterns of antagonistic interactions, such as host–parasite, predator–prey and plant–herbivore interactions. Networks describing interactions with low intimacy were more connected, more nested and less modular than high-intimacy networks. Moreover, the performance of the models differed across networks with different levels of intimacy. All models reproduced well low-intimacy networks, whereas the more elaborate models were also capable of reproducing networks depicting interactions with higher levels of intimacy. Our results indicate the key role of interaction intimacy in organizing antagonisms, suggesting that greater interaction intimacy might be associated with greater complexity in the assembly rules shaping ecological networks.

scholarly journals Dicamba drift alters plant-herbivore interactions at the agro-ecological interface

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nia M Johnson ◽  
Regina S Baucom
Keyword(s):  
Growth Rate ◽  
Herbicide Resistance ◽  
Species Interactions ◽  
Ecosystem Dynamics ◽  
Herbivore Interactions ◽  
Ecological Interface ◽  
Plant Herbivore ◽  
Herbicide Drift ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Herbicide Exposure

Natural populations evolve in response to biotic and abiotic changes in their environment, which shape species interactions and ecosystem dynamics. Agricultural systems can introduce novel conditions via herbicide exposure to non-crop habitats in surrounding fields. While herbicide drift is known to produce a variety of toxic effects in plants, little is known about its impact on non-target wildlife species interactions. In a two-year study, we investigated the impact of herbicide drift on plant-herbivore interactions with common weed velvetleaf (Abutlion theophrasti) as the focal species. The findings reveal a significant increase in the phloem feeding silverleaf whitefly (Bermisia tabaci) abundance on the plants exposed to herbicide at drift rates of 0.5% and 1% of the field dose. Additionally, we found evidence that drift imposes correlated selection on whitefly resistance and growth rate as well as positive linear selection on herbicide resistance. We also identified a significant phenotypic tradeoff between whitefly resistance and herbicide resistance in addition to whitefly resistance and relative growth rate in the presence of dicamba drift. These findings suggest herbicide exposure to non-target communities can significantly alter herbivore populations, potentially impacting biodiversity and community dynamics of weed populations found at the agro-ecological interface.

scholarly journals Museum specimens provide novel insights into changing plant–herbivore interactions

2018 ◽  
Vol 374 (1763) ◽  
pp. 20170393 ◽  
Author(s):  
Emily K. Meineke ◽  
T. Jonathan Davies
Keyword(s):  
Global Change ◽  
Species Interactions ◽  
Host Plants ◽  
Insect Herbivory ◽  
Individual Species ◽  
Museum Specimens ◽  
Proximate Mechanisms ◽  
Plant Associations ◽  
Herbivore Interactions ◽  
Plant Herbivore

Mounting evidence shows that species interactions may mediate how individual species respond to climate change. However, long-term anthropogenic effects on species interactions are poorly characterized owing to a lack of data. Insect herbivory is a major ecological process that represents the interaction between insect herbivores and their host plants, but historical data on insect damage to plants is particularly sparse. Here, we suggest that museum collections of insects and plants can fill key gaps in our knowledge on changing trophic interactions, including proximate mechanisms and the net outcomes of multiple global change drivers across diverse insect herbivore–plant associations. We outline theory on how global change may affect herbivores and their host plants and highlight the unique data that could be extracted from museum specimens to explore their shifting interactions. We aim to provide a framework for using museum specimens to explore how some of the most diverse co-evolved relationships are responding to climate and land use change. This article is part of the theme issue ‘Biological collections for understanding biodiversity in the Anthropocene’.

scholarly journals Climate change alters plant-herbivore interactions

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elena Hamann ◽  
Cameron Blevins ◽  
Steven J. Franks ◽  
M. Inam Jameel ◽  
Jill T. Anderson
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Drought Stress ◽  
Evolutionary Dynamics ◽  
Elevated Temperatures ◽  
Climatic Factors ◽  
Abiotic Factors ◽  
Meta Analysis ◽  
Precipitation Regimes ◽  
Herbivore Interactions ◽  
Plant Herbivore

ABSTRACTPlant-herbivore interactions have evolved in response to co-evolutionary dynamics, along with selection driven by abiotic conditions. We examine how abiotic factors influence trait expression in both plants and herbivores to evaluate how climate change will alter this long-standing interaction. The paleontological record documents increased herbivory during periods of global warming in the deep past. In phylogenetically-corrected meta-analyses, we find that elevated temperatures, CO2 concentration, drought stress and nutrient conditions directly and indirectly induce greater herbivore consumption, primarily in agricultural systems. Additionally, elevated CO2 delays herbivore development, but increased temperatures accelerate development. For annual plants, higher temperatures, CO2, and drought stress increase foliar herbivory, and our meta-analysis suggests that greater temperatures and drought may heighten florivory in perennials. Human actions are causing concurrent shifts in CO2, temperature, precipitation regimes and nitrogen deposition, yet few studies evaluate interactions among these changing conditions. We call for additional multifactorial studies that simultaneously manipulate multiple climatic factors, which will enable us to generate more robust predictions of how climate change could disrupt plant-herbivore interactions. Finally, we consider how shifts in insect and plant phenology and distribution patterns could lead to ecological mismatches, and how these changes may drive future adaptation and coevolution between interacting species.

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