2. Academic Validation
  3. Tissue-specific regulation of volatile emissions moves predators from flowers to attacked leaves

Tissue-specific regulation of volatile emissions moves predators from flowers to attacked leaves

  • Curr Biol. 2023 May 11;S0960-9822(23)00556-0. doi: 10.1016/j.cub.2023.04.074.
Asim Munawar 1,  Yi Xu 2,  Amr S Abou El-Ela 3,  Yadong Zhang 1,  Jian Zhong 1,  Zhiyao Mao 1,  Xuan Chen 1,  Han Guo 4,  Chao Zhang 1,  Yiqiao Sun 5,  Zengrong Zhu 1,  Ian T Baldwin 6,  Wenwu Zhou 7
Affiliations

Affiliations

  • 1 Ministry of Agricultural and Rural Affairs Key Laboratory of Molecular Biology of Crop Pathogens, Institute of Insect Science, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou 310058, China.
  • 2 Department of Plant Pathology, Nanjing Agricultural University, Nanjing 210095, China.
  • 3 Ministry of Agricultural and Rural Affairs Key Laboratory of Molecular Biology of Crop Pathogens, Institute of Insect Science, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou 310058, China; Department of Plant Protection, Faculty of Agriculture (Saba Basha), Alexandria University, Alexandria 21531, Egypt.
  • 4 Department of Economic Plants and Biotechnology, Yunnan Key Laboratory for Wild Plant Resources, Kunming Institute of Botany, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Kunming 650201, China.
  • 5 Department of Environmental Systems Science, ETH Zurich, Universitätstrasse 6, 8006 Zurich, Switzerland.
  • 6 Department of Molecular Ecology, Max Planck Institute for Chemical Ecology, Hans-Knöll-Str. 8, 07745 Jena, Germany.
  • 7 Ministry of Agricultural and Rural Affairs Key Laboratory of Molecular Biology of Crop Pathogens, Institute of Insect Science, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou 310058, China. Electronic address: wenwuzhou@zju.edu.cn.
PMID: 37224808 DOI: 10.1016/j.cub.2023.04.074
Abstract

Plant-predator mutualisms have been widely described in nature.1,2 How Plants fine-tune their mutualistic interactions with the predators they recruit remains poorly understood. In the wild potato (Solanum kurtzianum), predatory mites, Neoseiulus californicus, are recruited to flowers of undamaged Plants but rapidly move downward when the herbivorous mites, Tetranychus urticae, damage leaves. This "up-down" movement within the plant corresponds to the shift of N. californicus from palynivory to carnivory, as they change from feeding on pollen to herbivores when moving between different plant organs. This up-down movement of N. californicus is mediated by the organ-specific emissions of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) in flowers and herbivory-elicited leaves. Experiments with exogenous applications, biosynthetic inhibitors, and transient RNAi revealed that salicylic acid and jasmonic acid signaling in flowers and leaves mediates both the changes in VOC emissions and the up-down movement of N. californicus. This alternating communication between flowers and leaves mediated by organ-specific VOC emissions was also found in a cultivated variety of potato, suggesting the agronomic potential of using flowers as reservoirs of natural enemies in the control of potato pests.

Keywords

Neoseiulus californicus; Solanum kurtzianum; Solanum tuberosum; Tetranychus urticae; flower; jasmonic acid; phytohormone; plant volatile organic compounds; potato; salicylic acid.

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