Direct and indirect chemical defence of pine against folivorous insects.

Abstract

The chemical defence of pine against herbivorous insects has been intensively studied with respect to its effects on the performance and behaviour of the herbivores as well as on the natural enemies of pine herbivores. The huge variety of terpenoid pine components play a major role in mediating numerous specific food web interactions. The constitutive terpenoid pattern can be adjusted to herbivore attack by changes induced by insect feeding or oviposition activity. Recent studies on folivorous pine sawflies have highlighted the role of induced pine responses in herbivore attack and have demonstrated the importance of analysing the variability of pine defence and its finely tuned specificity with respect to the herbivore attacker in a multitrophic context.