Belowground herbivores impact plant performance, thereby inducing changes in plant community composition, which potentially leads to cascading effects onto higher trophic levels and ecosystem processes and productivity. Among soil-living insects, external root-chewing generalist herbivores have the strongest impact on plants. However, the lack of knowledge on their feeding behaviour under field...

To address the ever-growing group of health-conscious consumers, more and more nutritional and health claims are being used on food products. Nevertheless, only very few food constituents, including plant sterols, have been appointed an approved health claim (European Commission and Food and Drugs Administration). Plant sterols are part of those limited lists of approved compounds for their cho...

In ant-plant symbioses, plants provide symbiotic ants with food and specialized nesting cavities (called domatia). In many ant-plant symbioses, a fungal patch grows within each domatium. The symbiotic nature of the fungal association has been shown in the ant-plant Leonardoxa africana and its protective mutualist ant Petalomyrmex phylax. To decipher trophic fluxes among the three partners, food...

Global food production will need to increase more than 50% before 2050 to satisfy the food demands of an increasing human population. To solve this food crisis, an increase in rice production will be necessary as rice is especially vital for the nutrition of much of the population in many countries. One solution to the future food shortage worldwide would be to cultivate crops in places where p...

UNLABELLED The bacterial plant pathogen Pseudomonas syringae causes disease in a wide range of plants. The associated decrease in crop yields results in economic losses and threatens global food security. Competition exists between the plant immune system and the pathogen, the basic principles of which can be applied to animal infection pathways. P. syringae uses a type III secretion system (T3...

The present study was carried out to examine 6 plants including aquatic and terrestrial plants on food preference and growth of grass carp. 7 experimental treatments with three replicates were considered. The experimental treatments were ponds containing T1: M. spicatum, T2: C. demersum, T3: A. filiculoides, T4: L. minor, T5: C. dactylon, T6: M. sativa and T7: M. Spicatum + C. demersum + A. fil...

For centuries, Aloe Vera has been used by many different cultures. The ancient Greeks, the Romans, the Babylonians, Indians and the Chinese have all used Aloe Vera as a medicinal plant. One of the common experimental cancer models is sarcoma-180. When Aloe was administered to mice bearing S-180 tumors, the tumor growth was inhibited. Aloe vera is a dietary supplement and not a regulated drug. T...