Collaborative Research: Using herbivore kairomones to assess short-term and legacy risk responses in the early life stages of long-lived woody plants

合作研究：利用食草动物利好素评估长寿木本植物生命早期阶段的短期和遗留风险反应

• 批准号: 2117367
• 负责人: Evan Preisser
• 金额: $ 51.99万
• 依托单位: University of Rhode Island
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2021
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2021-09-01 至 2025-08-31
• 项目状态: 未结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=2117367&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Collaborative; Research; Using; herbivore; kairomones

Even though plants cannot move, they are far from defenseless against their herbivores. While research exploring how plants protect themselves has focused largely on changes in plant defense that occur in response to herbivore attack, it has recently been shown that plants can detect and respond to herbivore cues (referred to as ‘kairomones’) even before an attack begins. Mucus from snails and slugs, herbivores that attack seeds and seedlings, triggers defensive responses in seedlings that help the plants survive subsequent attack by slugs or other herbivores. Such defenses may be particularly important for seedling sugar maple trees, an iconic tree in the northeastern US critical to the maple sugar industry that is declining throughout its range. An invasive slug, the dusky Arion, poses a major threat to newly germinated sugar maple seedlings; this project addresses how mucus from this slug affects the anti-herbivore defenses of sugar maples ranging in age from seedlings to saplings. It also evaluates whether early-life exposure to mucus can help protect sugar maples against later-arriving herbivores ranging from gypsy moths to white-tailed deer. The project also funds work by the Rhode Island-based Science and Math Investigative Learning (SMILE) program, a classroom-based organization that works with kids grades 4-12 to increase the numbers of educationally disadvantaged students who graduate from high school prepared to enter higher education and pursue STEM careers. Students work with project scientists on field- and classroom-based experiences that employ inquiry-based learning to reveal ecological principles and explore local ecosystems.Despite substantial research exploring plant defense induction during and after herbivore attack, little is known about whether and how plants use pre-attack cues such as kairomones (herbivore-emitted chemicals not associated with attack that are detected by - and thus provide benefits to - a plant) to preemptively induce defense. Herbivore kairomones have recently been documented in multiple systems; slug/snail mucus, an easily obtained and manipulable kairomone, can be used to ask novel questions about plant risk perception and induced responses. The fact that slugs preferentially attack seedlings, a highly vulnerable life history stage, highlights the selective advantage of pre-attack mucus detection and response. The following questions are addressed in a long-lived woody plant system: How do different risk cues affect growth and defense of different-aged seedlings?; How do ontogenetic shifts in susceptibility determine patterns of responses?; What are the immediate and legacy consequences of risk perception and ontogeny in the field? These questions are asked using the slug Arion subfuscus and the sugar maple Acer saccharum in experiments exploring interactions between risk cue quality and seedling age over both short (~1 month) and long (1 yr.) time periods. This is the first study of how kairomones affect woody plant defense, growth, and subsequent herbivore vulnerability. The manipulation of herbivore cues, ontogeny, and differential susceptibility within and across seasons explores whether current plant defense reflects the ‘ghost of herbivory risk past’; present-day defense may often only make sense considering past information received by plants.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.

即使植物无法移动，它们对食草动物的防御能力远非远处。尽管探索植物如何保护自己的研究主要集中在响应草食动物攻击时发生的植物防御的变化，但最近已证明植物可以在攻击开始之前检测和响应草食动物提示（称为“ kiromones”）。蜗牛和sl虫的粘液，攻击种子和幼苗的食草动物，触发幼苗的防御反应，这些反应可帮助植物在随后被sl剂或其他草食动物攻击。这种防御对于幼苗糖枫树尤为重要，这是美国东北部对枫糖行业至关重要的标志性树，在整个范围内正在下降。一个侵入性的sl，暗淡的阿里昂（Arion）对新发芽的糖枫幼苗构成了重大威胁。该项目介绍了这种sl鼠的粘液如何影响糖枫的抗小鼠防御能力，从种子到树苗的年龄范围。它还评估了早期对粘液的暴露是否可以帮助保护糖枫，以免以后从吉普赛飞蛾到白尾鹿的食草动物。该项目还资助了基于罗德岛的科学和数学研究（Smile）计划的工作，该计划是一个基于课堂的组织，该组织与儿童4至12年级合作，以增加从高中毕业的教育不利的学生人数，准备进入高等教育和购买STEM职业。学生与项目科学家合作研究基于田间和课堂的经验，这些经验采用基于询问的学习来揭示生态原理并探索当地的生态系统。尽管在草食动物攻击期间和之后探讨了植物防御的大量研究，但对植物是否以及如何使用前攻击线索（例如Kiairomones）（与食草动物相关的化学物质相关的攻击化学物质，与植物相关的攻击相关，从而为植物提供益处提供益处）的攻击前提示知之甚少。最近在多个系统中记录了草食动物的kiairomones。 Slug/Snail Mucus是一种易于获得且可操纵的Kairomons，可用于询问有关植物风险感知和诱发反应的新颖问题。 Slugs优先攻击幼苗，这是一个高度脆弱的生活历史阶段，这一事实突出了攻击前粘液检测和反应的选择性优势。以下问题在一个长寿命的木质植物系统中解决：不同的风险提示如何影响不同年龄幼苗的生长和防御？易感性的个体发生变化如何确定反应模式？该领域的风险感知和个体发育的直接和遗产后果是什么？在实验中，使用slug arion subfuscus和糖枫痤疮的糖果提出了这些问题，探索了短（约1个月）和长（1年）的风险提示质量和种子年龄之间的相互作用。这是关于Kairomones如何影响木本植物防御，生长和随后的草食动物脆弱性的第一个研究。在整个季节内和整个季节内和差异易感性的操纵性提示，本体发育和差异敏感性探讨了当前的植物防御是否反映了“草食风险过去的幽灵”；考虑到植物收到的过去信息，当今的防御通常只有意义。该奖项反映了NSF的法定任务，并通过使用基金会的知识分子优点和更广泛的影响审查标准来评估，被认为是珍贵的支持。