ArticleAnnals of botany2024
Simulation of early season herbivory via mechanical damage affects flower production in pumpkin (Cucurbita pepo ssp. pepo).
Article in Annals of botany, 2024. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 2 papers.
What it found
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Who cites it
2 citing papers in PubMed.
- Plant Volatile Organic Compound Collection: Superior Odor-Trapping Efficiency of Mesoporous Carbons over Porous Polymers.ACS omega · 2026Article
- Impacts of Leaf Damage Intensity on Ant-Plant Protection Mutualism and Plant Fitness.Plants (Basel, Switzerland) · 2025Article
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Authors and funding
5 authors.
Funding
Abstract
backgroundDamage from insect herbivores can elicit a wide range of plant responses, including reduced or compensatory growth, altered volatile profiles, or increased production of defence compounds. Specifically, herbivory can alter floral development as plants reallocate resources towards defence and regrowth functions. For pollinator-dependent species, floral quantity and quality are critical for attracting floral visitors; thus, herbivore-induced developmental effects that alter either floral abundance or attractiveness may have critical implications for plant reproductive success. Based on past work on resource trade-offs, we hypothesize that herbivore damage-induced effects are stronger in structural floral traits that require significant resource investment (e.g. flower quantity), as plants reallocate resources towards defence and regrowth, and weaker in secondary floral traits that require less structural investment (e.g. nectar rewards).
methodsIn this study, we simulated early-season herbivore mechanical damage in the domesticated jack-o-lantern pumpkin Cucurbita pepo ssp. pepo and measured a diverse suite of floral traits over a 60-d greenhouse experiment. KEY
resultsWe found that mechanical damage delayed the onset of male anthesis and reduced the total quantity of flowers produced. Additionally, permutational multivariate analysis of variance (PERMANOVA) indicated that mechanical damage significantly impacts overall floral volatile profile, though not output of sesquiterpenoids, a class of compounds known to recruit specialized cucumber beetle herbivores and squash bee pollinators.
conclusionsWe show that C. pepo spp. pepo reduces investment in male flower production following mechanical damage, and that floral volatiles do exhibit shifts in production, indicative of damage-induced trait plasticity. Such reductions in male flower production could reduce the relative attractiveness of damaged plants to foraging pollinators in this globally relevant cultivated species.
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