Induced Plant Resistance to Herbivory [Paperback]

This timely book provides an overview of the anatomical, chemical, and developmental features contributing to plant defense, with an emphasis on plant responses that are induced by wounding or herbivore attack. The book first introduces general concepts of direct and indirect defenses, followed by a focused review of the different resistance traits. Finally, signal perception and transduction mechanism for the activation of plant defense responses are discussed.

Flowering plants dominate much of the Earth's surface and yet, as sessile organisms, they must constantly resist attack by numerous voracious herbivores. Survival in the face of an abundance of insect predators relies on sophisticated resistance systems allowing plants to escape from herbivory in time or in space, to confront herbivores directly, or to fight them indirectly by remarkable collaborations with other species. Until recently, plant resistance was believed to be constitutive, i.e. ever-present and independent from herbivore attack. However, plants were discovered to respond actively to herbivory through the mobilization of specific defenses, and this discovery opened an exciting new field of research.
This book provides a thorough overview of the anatomical, chemical, and developmental features contributing to plant defense, with particular emphasis on plant responses that are induced by wounding or herbivore attack.

In Memoriam; Contents; Contributors; Introduction; Section I. Basic concepts of plant defense against insect herbivores:1. Direct defenses in plants and their induction by wounding and insect herbivores; Gregg A. Howe and Andreas Schaller .- 2. Herbivore-induced indirect defense: from induction mechanisms to community ecology; Maaike Bruinsma and Marcel Dicke.- 3. Induced defenses and the cost-benefit paradigm; Anke Steppuhn and Ian T. Baldwin .- Section II. Induced direct defenses:A: Anatomical defenses: 4. Leaf trichome formation and plalC„