The enemy of my enemy is my friend is an adage that holds true for plants, suggests a linkurl:study;http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/329/5995/1075 that found that plants rely on chemicals in the saliva of leaf-eating insects to attract predators of those insects.
Reporting in Science, researchers linkurl:Ian Baldwin;http://www.ice.mpg.de/usrpers/iaba2016/web/main_en.htm and linkurl:Silke Allmann;http://www.ice.mpg.de/dbs-staff/hopa/sial3374/web/main_en.htm from the Max Planck Institute for Chemical Ecology found that something in the saliva of the __Manduca sexta__ caterpillar changes the chemical composition of the distress signal tobacco plants normally produce when they are injured, potentially allowing carnivores in the area to find the feeding caterpillar. "This adds to a growing list of complicated ways in which signaling happens between insects and plants," linkurl:Jack Schultz,;http://plantsci.missouri.edu/faculty/schultz.htm a chemical ecologist from the University of Missouri who was not involved in the study, said. When a leaf is wounded, plants immediately release...
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Geocoris approaches Manduca eggs and hatchling |
S. Allmann and I.T. Baldwin, "Insects betray themselves in nature to predators by rapid isomerization of green leaf volatiles," Science, 329:1075-8, 2010.
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