Specificity of plant-plant communication for Baccharis salicifolia sexes but not genotypes.

Abstract

Plants are able to adjust their anti-herbivore defenses in response to the volatile organic compounds (VOCs) emitted by herbivore-damaged neighbors, and some of these changes increase resistance against subsequent herbivory. This phenomenon of plant-plant communication is thought to be widespread, but recent investigations have cautioned that it can be context dependent, including variation in the strength of communication based on the identity of plants and their associated herbivores. Here, we performed three greenhouse experiments using multiple male and female genotypes of the dioecious woody shrub Baccharis salicifolia and its specialist aphid Uroleucon macolai to test for specificity of plant-plant communication with respect to plant sex and genotype. Moreover, we evaluated plant sexual dimorphism and genotypic variation in VOC emissions (i.e., the "speaking" side of the interaction) and response of plants to VOC exposure (i.e., the "listening" side of the interaction) in order to identify the chemical mechanisms underlying such specificity. We did not find genotypic specificity of communication; emitter plants damaged by U.macolai significantly reduced subsequent U.macolai performance on receivers, but these effects were indistinguishable for communication within vs. among genotypes. In contrast, we found sex specificity of communication; male emitter plants reduced subsequent U.macolai performance on male and female receiver plants equally, while female emitter plants only did so for female receivers. We found sexual (but not genotypic) dimorphism in speaking but not listening; of the seven compounds induced by U.macolai feeding (speaking), pinocarvone was approximately fivefold greater in female than in male plants, while exposure of plants to pinocarvone emissions (listening) reduced U.macolai performance equally in both male and female plants. Together, our study demonstrates novel evidence for sexually dimorphic specificity of plant-plant communication and the chemical mechanism underlying this effect.