This chapter discusses whether plant chemical communication is a mechanism by which plant genetic diversity can affect the natural enemies of herbivores. Plant genetic diversity influences natural enemies, and these insects use volatile chemical cues to locate suitable habitats. However, the importance of chemical communication for these interactions has not been considered. In this chapter, th...

The evolution of chemical communication and the origin of pheromones are among the most challenging issues in chemical ecology. Current theory predicts that chemical communication can arise from compounds primarily evolved for non-communicative purposes but experimental evidence showing a gradual evolution of non-informative compounds into cues and true signals is scarce. Here we report that fe...

Chaos in nonlinear dynamics occurs widely in physics, chemistry, biology, ecology, secure communications, cryptosystems and many other scientific disciplines. Chaotic systems have many important applications in science and engineering. This paper derives new results for the analysis and adaptive control of a chemical chaotic attractor discovered by Haung (2005). This paper starts with a detaile...

The biology of host recognition in Agrobacterium tumefaciens has set the tone for host interactions and xenognosis for several decades, and the twists and turns of the discoveries provide many valuable lessons and insights. From transposon mutagenesis enabling discovery of the initial chemical exchanges to two-component signal transduction and receptor identification, this organism continues to...

As one of the most important biological factors that maintain the stability of the largest fixed and semi-fixed desert in China, the Gurbantunggut Desert, the biological soil crusts (BSCs) develop well and play critical ecological roles in the desert ecosystem. In this paper, we briefly summarize our research findings since 2002 including species composition, distribution pattern and ecological...