When Caterpillars Attack, Tobacco Plants Use Their Own Spit Against Them
A tobacco plant may look like a harmless, tempting feast for herbivores, but it is capable of both direct and indirect chemical warfare. When attacked by hungry insects, the plant releases a complex mix of volatile chemicals. Some of these chemicals directly assault herbivore senses to make feeding more difficult, but a new study indicates that GLVs (Green Leaf Volatiles) go for an indirect attack by attracting natural predators that will feast on either the herbivores or their eggs. A number of laboratory studies have shown that GLVs attract carnivores, but not many observations of this phenomenon have occurred in nature, and nobody was really sure how GLVs manage to draw them in. Silke Allmann from the Max Planck Institute of Chemical Biology in Germany and Ian T. Baldwin from the Swammerdam Institute for Life Sciences in the Netherlands worked together to show that certain herbivores undermine their own survival, as plants can use a component of the insect's spit to create their defenses.Th
When Caterpillars Attack, Tobacco Plants Use Their Own Spit Against Them
If you’re a tobacco hornworm caterpillar, your own spit can come ...
Fri 27 Aug 10 from Discover Magazine
Tobacco leaves emit warning chemicals that summon predators when mixed with caterpillar spit
When hornworm caterpillars eat tobacco plants, they doom themselves with ...
Fri 27 Aug 10 from Discover Magazine
Plants send SOS signal to insects
Plants are able to summon insects to their aid to avoid being eaten by caterpillars, scientists discover.
Fri 27 Aug 10 from BBC News
Lethal backfire: Green odor with fatal consequences for voracious caterpillars
During field studies, scientists at the Max Planck Institute for Chemical Ecology discovered that the oral secretions of tobacco hornworm larvae contain a particular substance that promptly ...
Thu 26 Aug 10 from PhysOrg
Lethal backfire: Green odor with fatal consequences for voracious caterpillars, Fri 27 Aug 10 from ScienceDaily
Lethal backfire: Green odor with fatal consequences for voracious caterpillars, Fri 27 Aug 10 from e! Science News
Plants use spit of the insects eating them for self-defense
A tobacco plant may look like a harmless, tempting feast for herbivores, but it is capable of both direct and indirect chemical warfare. When attacked by hungry insects, the plant releases a ...
Thu 26 Aug 10 from Ars Technica
Plants can summon help with chemical 'SOS'
AMSTERDAM, Netherlands, Aug. 27 (UPI) -- Plants can send out a chemical "mayday" distress signals to summon insects to save them from being consumed by caterpillars, Dutch and German researchers ...
Fri 27 Aug 10 from UPI
Featured - Lethal backfire: Green odor with fatal consequences for voracious caterpillars
Plants have developed a sophisticated defense system. They can not only directly fend off herbivores by producing toxins, but also do so indirectly by emitting odorant molecules into the atmosphere ...
Fri 27 Aug 10 from Labspaces.net
Going Green Has Lethal Consequences For Hungry Caterpillars
The dilemma for tobacco hornworm larvae: By feeding on tobacco leaves they unintentionally and rapidly transform plant substances into attractant signals that betray their location to their ...
Fri 27 Aug 10 from RedOrbit
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