Ecology of plant-attacker interactions: from gene to community

December 9th, 2008. 16.00 h. 10A00 (Main Building)

Ecology of plant-attacker interactions: from gene to community

Marcel Dicke, Laboratory of Entomology, Wageningen University, The Netherlands.
www.ent.wur.nl

Abstract
Plants are members of complex communities and interact both with antagonists and beneficial organisms. An important question in plant defense signaling research is how plants integrate signals induced by pathogens, beneficial microbes and insects into the most appropriate adaptive response. Molecular and genomic tools are now being used to uncover the complexity of the induced defense signaling networks that have evolved during the arms races between plants and their attackers. Molecular biologists and ecologists are joining forces to place molecular mechanisms of plant defense into an ecological perspective.
Insects comprise the most diverse group of organisms that attack plants and plants have evolved a diverse array of induced defenses against insects, including direct and indirect defenses. The diversity of plant pathogenic microbes is less well characterized but their threat to plants is equally renowned. The defenses of plants against their attackers can be investigated at various levels of biological organization and integrating such approaches from genes to community ecology is an exciting challenge to biologists. Recent developments have shown a rapid expansion of mechanistic knowledge of plant-insect interactions in terms of induced resistance and induced attraction of carnivorous enemies of herbivorous insects. In the laboratory the effects of certain genes on individual plant-insect interactions can be investigated. An exciting development is that plants that have been altered in the expression of specific genes involved in induced defenses are exposed to their natural ecological community. By integrating approaches aimed at understanding subcellular mechanisms with those on addressing ecological functions in a natural environment the field of molecular ecology of plant-attacker interactions is rapidly expanding our understanding of the intricate phenotypic plasticity that plants exhibit in their contest with the large number of attacker species.

Publication 2006
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