IASMA Research and Innovation Centre, Fondazione Edmund Mach, Via E. Mach 1, 38010 San Michele all'Adige, Italy.
Phytochemistry. 2011 Nov;72(16):1999-2005. doi: 10.1016/j.phytochem.2011.06.006. Epub 2011 Jul 25.
Plant volatiles are signals used by herbivorous insects to locate host plants and select oviposition sites. Whether such volatiles are used as indicators of plant quality by adult insects in search of host plants has been rarely tested. We tested whether volatiles indicate plant quality by studying the oviposition of the grapevine moth Lobesia botrana on the grapevine plant Vitis vinifera. Host plants were infected with a variety of microorganisms, and larval fitness was correlated to the infected state of the substrate. Our results show an oviposition preference for volatiles that is significantly correlated with the fitness of the substrate. The chemical profiles of the bouquets from each V. vinifera-microorganism system are clearly differentiated in a PCA analysis. Both the volatile signal and the quality of the plant as larval food were affected by the introduction of microorganisms. Our study represents a broad approach to the study of plant-insect interactions by considering not only the direct effect of the plant but also the effect of plant-microorganism interactions on insect population dynamics.
植物挥发物是植食性昆虫用来定位宿主植物和选择产卵地点的信号。然而，成年昆虫是否将这些挥发物用作寻找宿主植物的质量指标，这一点很少被测试过。我们通过研究葡萄透翅蛾（Lobesia botrana）在葡萄藤植物（Vitis vinifera）上的产卵行为来测试挥发物是否指示植物的质量。宿主植物感染了多种微生物，幼虫的适应性与基质的感染状态相关。我们的结果表明，对挥发物的产卵偏好与基质的适应性显著相关。在 PCA 分析中，每个 V. vinifera-微生物系统的花束化学图谱明显不同。挥发性信号和作为幼虫食物的植物质量都受到微生物引入的影响。我们的研究通过考虑植物的直接作用以及植物-微生物相互作用对昆虫种群动态的影响，代表了一种广泛的研究植物-昆虫相互作用的方法。
