Life stage-dependent genetic traits as drivers of plant–herbivore interactions

In recent decades, we have come to understand in great detail the mechanisms that allow plants and herbivorous arthropods withstand each other. Research into these interactions often focuses on specific life stages of animals, for pragmatic reasons. Yet it is well known lifecycles herbivores are accompanied by niche shifts can change their interactions. The occurrence changes defensive regulatory metabolic networks during development as driver plant–herbivore mainly inferred from behavioral patterns, but there increasingly molecular-mechanistic data support causality. particular, understanding signatures ontogenetic shifts, genetic basis, may prove be critical design knowledge-based crop protection strategies.