Call for Papers

Induced Resistance: From Theory to Practice

Guest Editor: Michael J. Stout

Although plants are sessile, they are not passive participants in their interactions with the herbivores that threaten them.  On the contrary, most plants respond to herbivory by rapidly initiating comprehensive transcriptomic and metabolomic changes that transform them into a phenotype more resistant to herbivores.  Induced resistance, because it allows a plant to express costly defenses only when it is under attack, is generally understood to be a cost-saving measure, but there may be advantages to inducibility beyond conservation of resources. 

Outstanding advances have been made in understanding many aspects of induced resistance, including perception of herbivore attack, early signaling following attack, phytohormonal mediation of responses, involvement of other trophic levels in the response, and coordinated changes in primary and secondary metabolism that allow plants to recover from herbivore injury. 

In addition, the increased availability of -omics techniques have opened new avenues for exploring the breadth and depth of changes that characterize the induced phenotype.  Importantly, studies combining data from several levels of biological organization are beginning to shed light on the relative roles of constitutive and inducible resistance in structuring communities of organisms centered around plants.  Despite these advances, however, little progress has been made in utilizing or manipulating induced resistance to protect crop plants from herbivores.  

For this special issue, contributions related to all aspects of induced resistance in plants are invited, but manuscripts describing theoretical or experimental studies on the application of induced resistance to crop protection are particularly welcome.  Papers accepted for the issue will be published immediately online.

Submission Deadline: August 30, 2022