Abstract
Main conclusion
Domestication affected the abundances and diversity of maize root volatiles more than northward spread and modern breeding, and herbivore preference for roots was correlated with volatile diversity and herbivore resistance.
Abstract
Studies show that herbivore defenses in crops are mediated by domestication, spread, and breeding, among other human-driven processes. They also show that those processes affected chemical communication between crop plants and herbivores. We hypothesized that (i) preference of the herbivore (Diabrotica virgifera virgifera) larvae for embryonic roots of maize (Zea mays mays) would increase and (ii) root volatile diversity would decrease with the crop’s domestication, northward spread to present-day USA, and modern breeding. We used Balsas teosinte (Zea mays parviglumis), Mexican and USA landrace maizes, and US inbred maize lines to test these hypotheses. We found that herbivore preference and volatile diversity increased with maize domestication and northward spread but decreased with modern breeding. Additionally, we found that the abundances of single volatiles did not consistently increase or decrease with maize domestication, spread, and breeding; rather, volatiles grouped per their abundances were differentially affected by those processes, and domestication had the greatest effects. Altogether, our results suggested that: the herbivore’s preference for maize roots is correlated with volatile diversity and herbivore resistance; changes in abundances of individual volatiles are evident at the level of volatile groups; and maize domestication, but not spread and breeding, affected the abundances of some green leaf volatiles and sesquiterpenes/sesquiterpenoids. In part, we discussed our results in the context of herbivore defense evolution when resources for plant growth and defense vary across environments. We suggested that variability in relative abundance of volatiles may be associated with their local, functional relevance across wild and agricultural environments.
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Abbreviations
- GLVs:
-
Green leaf volatiles
- WCR:
-
Western corn rootworm (Diabrotica virgifera virgifera)
- VOCs:
-
Volatile organic compounds
- Teosinte:
-
Balsas teosinte
- Mex landrace:
-
Mexican landrace maize
- US landrace:
-
US landrace maize
- US elite:
-
US inbred maize
- MT:
-
Monoterpene/monoterpenoid
- ST:
-
Sequiterpene/sesquiterpenoid
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Acknowledgements
We thank Chad Nielson (USDA ARS, Brookings, SD, United States) for providing western corn rootworm eggs, and Mark Millard (USDA NPGS, Ames, IA, United States) for providing Mo17, and Mexican and US maize landrace seed. R. F. Medina and K. Zhu-Salzman (both Texas A&M University, College Station) provided advice on earlier versions of the manuscript. Two anonymous reviewers provided valuable advice which helped us to meaningfully improve the manuscript.
Funding
This study was supported in part by funding from Consejo Nacional de Ciencia y Tecnología (CONACyT) and Instituto Nacional de Investigaciones Forestales, Agrícolas y Pecuarias (INIFAP), both Mexico, to AAF-P (CONACyT scholarship #382690); Texas A&M University-CONACyT [Characterization of Resistance to Root- And Foliage-Feeding Insects in Maize Breeding Lines, Landraces, and Wild Ancestors, Project 2014–024(S)] and the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) Hatch (TEX07234) to JSB, and; USDA-National Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA) to MVK and JSB [Lipid-Mediated Signaling Govern Maize Resistance To Below- and Above-Ground Insect Herbivores, Project USDA-NIFA (2021-67013-33568)].
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Correlation between volatiles and WCR host preference as measured in assay Preference for Zea plant types relative to a non-host (see Fig. 4a) (PNG 128 KB)
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Output of random forest analyses showing volatile compounds that were most relevant to explaining variation among plant types (PNG 101 KB)
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Bernal, J.S., Helms, A.M., Fontes-Puebla, A.A. et al. Root volatile profiles and herbivore preference are mediated by maize domestication, geographic spread, and modern breeding. Planta 257, 24 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00425-022-04057-0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00425-022-04057-0