Translation of "Fraßfeinde" in English

Plants are continually exposed to herbivore attack.

In addition, the plant gives off fragrances to attract the caterpillars' herbivores.

The plant constantly produces nicotine to discourage mammals and other non-specialized herbivores.

Usually, the glucosinolate-myrosinase system is a highly efficient defence strategy cabbage plants deploy to deter herbivores.

Plants use a broad arsenal of signal substances to fend off herbivores.

Plants have to continuously defend themselves against herbivores to survive and reproduce.

Furthermore, it is more tolerant of fluctuations in local abiotic conditions and also less attractive to predators.

Some plant species, such as the Lima bean, not only secrete nectar from their flowers but also from so-called extrafloral nectaries to attract ants which in turn fend off herbivores.

Plants defend themselves against herbivores by employing a large arsenal of chemical substances, so-called secondary metabolites.

Actually, one would normally assume that plants suffer disadvantages if they do not mount their defences until after herbivores have inflicted their first damage.

And still further, predators of the bladderwrack even use the red algae as a protective cover to hide from their own enemies.

The mechanisms of this negative influence are, firstly, competition for food and, secondly, the impact of natural enemies of the mosquito larvae.

Natural variations of scent biosynthesis and nectar secretion in wild tobacco populations, including plants whose flowers do not produce any nectar at all, may therefore ensure that the reproductive success is optimized while herbivores are kept at bay.

The larva emits toxic secretions, visible as vesicles (arrow), from their defensive glands as a chemical protection against predators.

On the other hand, it highlights the importance of the ability to adapt defense responses specifically to different herbivores.

Whereas the plants supply water and nutrients the endophytic fungi have been repeatedly shown to increase the fitness of their hosts against environmental stress factors such as attacks by herbivores or by pathogenic microorganisms through production of structurally unique bioactive compounds.

On the other hand, they may have a specific function in the insects’ defence against their own enemies,” Franziska Beran hypothesizes.

Like other plants, ferns produce toxic substances and can successfully defend themselves against herbivores.

Nevertheless, scientists have only now discovered that this plant attracts ants to defend against predators, in the same manner as only known for plants with nectaries up to now.

Scientists agree that a deep understanding of the ecological interactions that occur in nature is essential for sustainable agriculture and that the plant traits that are important for resistance to herbivore attack in nature are complex and operate on many spatial scales.

Such an emission of volatile compounds may attract the pest insects’ enemies, such as ichneumon wasps or predatory bugs, that parasitise herbivores.

This suggests that ferns can in principle mobilise this kind of defense reaction. However, they do not use this indirect defense to fend off herbivores.

Ian Baldwin is the head of the Department of Molecular Ecology at the Max Planck Institute for Chemical Ecology. For almost 20 years, he and his team have been studying the sophisticated defense strategies deployed by the coyote tobacco Nicotiana attenuata against its enemies in the plants’ native habitat.

Furthermore, it was assumed that a light deficiency on the sea floor during a plankton bloom would limit the bladderwrack’s ability to defend itself against predators.

Scientists in Prof. Ian Baldwin’s group at the Max Planck Institute for Chemical Ecology in Jena have now found that smRNAs are also involved in plant defences against herbivores.