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| Resource-based contraints in herbivore defense: lessons from native Nicotiana |
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Baldwin, IT 1
1 Dept. of Molecular Ecology, Max Planck Institute for Chemical Ecology, Winzulaer Strasse 10, 07745 Jena, Germany
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Former US president Lyndon Johnson, who was in office during the Vietnam war, is quoted as having said, that America could have both "guns and butter". This often-repeated denial of the influence of resource-based constraints on policy decisions, stands in marked contrast to the wide-spread recognition of resource constraints in allocation patterns of organisms. This talk will present progress with Nicotiana attenuata, a model ecological expression system native to the southwestern USA, in understanding the role of resource-based constraints in sculpting the plastic responses of plants to environmental stresses, particularly attack from herbivores. This plant 'recognizes' attack from its natural herbivores and alters its responses in a manner consistent with resource-based constraints. Understanding these resource-based constraints, however, requires an intimate understanding of the plant's natural history.
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