Abstract
Herbivore induced plant volatiles (HIPVs) are specific volatile organic compounds (VOC) that a plant produces in response to herbivory. Some HIPVs are only produced after damage, while others are also produced by intact plants, but in lower quantities. Among the known functions of HIPVs are within plant volatile signaling to activate systemic plant defenses, the priming and activation of defenses in neighboring plants and the attraction of natural enemies of herbivores. When released into the atmosphere a plant's control over the produced compounds ends. However, many of the HIPVs are highly reactive with atmospheric oxidants and their atmospheric life times could be relatively short, often only a few minutes. We summarise the potential ecological and atmospheric processes that involve the reaction products of HIPVs in their gaseous, liquid and solid secondary organic aerosol (SOA) forms, both in the atmosphere and after deposition on plant surfaces. A potential negative feedback loop, based on the reactions forming SOA from HIPVs and the associated stimulation of sun screening cloud formation is presented. This hypothesis is based on recent field surveys in the geographical areas facing the greatest degree of global warming and insect outbreaks. Furthermore, we discuss how these processes could benefit the individual plant or conspecifics that originally released the HIPVs into the atmosphere. Further ecological studies should aim to elucidate the possible reasons for biosynthesis of short-lived volatile compounds to have evolved as a response to external biotic damage to plants.
Highlights
Most vascular plants constitutively emit volatile organic compounds (VOCs), but emissions may substantially increase and diversify under conditions of abiotic and biotic stress (Holopainen and Gershenzon, 2010)
Feeding by herbivores was found to induce the emission of novel volatile compounds often referred to as herbivore-induced plant volatiles (HIPVs) (Hare, 2011) that attract natural enemies of the herbivores
In this review we focus on the different roles and fate of inducible VOC molecules after release from the VOC
Summary
Most vascular plants constitutively emit volatile organic compounds (VOCs), but emissions may substantially increase and diversify under conditions of abiotic and biotic stress (Holopainen and Gershenzon, 2010). Feeding by herbivores was found to induce the emission of novel volatile compounds often referred to as herbivore-induced plant volatiles (HIPVs) (Hare, 2011) that attract natural enemies of the herbivores. This was shown for the first time in seminal studies conducted with spider mites and predatory mites by Dicke and Sabelis (1988) and with moth larvae and parasitic wasps by Turlings et al (1990). Ghirardo et al (2012) concluded that for Q. robur, the strategy of emitting herbivore-repellent rather than natural enemy attracting HIPVs, appears to be the better mechanism for avoiding defoliation. When plants are influenced by a diverse community of chewing and sucking herbivores, a single HIPV compound could be an efficient repellent against one herbivore, but act as an attractant of another herbivore and many of the community’s predators and parasitoids (Xiao et al, 2012)
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