XVI International Botanical Congess

Plant resistance that is induced by initial herbivore attack is common in plants. Induced responses can take the form of biochemical or structural changes, or the recruitment of predators of herbivores to the plant. Cost-benefit models of plant defense strategies predict that in the presence of herbivores, induced plants should benefit from reduced herbivory and increased growth and seed production compared to uninduced controls, in the absence of herbivores, induced plants are predicted to incur a cost of induction and thus have lowered fitness compared to controls. Induced responses to herbivory represent a class of phenotypic plasticity in plant defense that is likely an adaptive strategy. Seeds from damaged plants produce offspring that are better defended than seedlings from undamaged plants, leading to the potential for transgenerational induced defenses.