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Publication Details
AFRICAN RESEARCH NEXUS
SHINING A SPOTLIGHT ON AFRICAN RESEARCH
agricultural and biological sciences
The prospect of applying chemical elicitors and plant strengtheners to enhance the biological control of crop pests
Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, Volume 369, No. 1639, Year 2014
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Description
An imminent food crisis reinforces the need for novel strategies to increase crop yields worldwide. Effective control of pest insects should be part of such strategies, preferentially with reduced negative impact on the environment and optimal protection and utilization of existing biodiversity. Enhancing the presence and efficacy of native biological control agents could be one such strategy. Plant strengthener is a generic term for several commercially available compounds or mixtures of compounds that can be applied to cultivated plants in order to 'boost their vigour, resilience and performance'. Studies into the consequences of boosting plant resistance against pests and diseases on plant volatiles have found a surprising and dramatic increase in the plants' attractiveness to parasitic wasps. Here, we summarize the results from these studies and present new results from assays that illustrate the great potential of two commercially available resistance elicitors. We argue that plant strengtheners may currently be the best option to enhance the attractiveness of cultivated plants to biological control agents. Other options, such as the genetic manipulation of the release of specific volatiles may offer future solutions, but in most systems, we still miss fundamental knowledge on which key attractants should be targeted for this approach. © 2014 The Author(s) Published by the Royal Society. All rights reserved.
Authors & Co-Authors
Sobhy, Islam S.
Switzerland, Neuchatel
Université de Neuchâtel
Egypt, Ismailia
Suez Canal University
United Kingdom, Harpenden
Rothamsted Research
Erb, Matthias
Switzerland, Neuchatel
Université de Neuchâtel
Germany, Jena
Max Planck Institute for Chemical Ecology
Lou, Yonggen
China, Hangzhou
State Key Laboratory of Rice Biology
Turlings, Ted Christiaan Joannes
Switzerland, Neuchatel
Université de Neuchâtel
Statistics
Citations: 68
Authors: 4
Affiliations: 5
Identifiers
Doi:
10.1098/rstb.2012.0283
ISSN:
09628436
Research Areas
Food Security
Genetics And Genomics