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Ecology

Bite the mother, fight the daughter

Nature volume 401, pages 22–23 (1999)Cite this article

Induced defences — which emerge or develop to full strength when activated by the presence of an enemy — are widespread in sedentary or slowly moving prey1. Such induced resistance, as opposed to constitutive resistance (which is present all the time), is profitable when defences are metabolically expensive, and when attack is unpredictable but recurrent2. Induced defensive traits are diverse. Water fleas, for example, form long, helmet-shaped spines on their necks, making it difficult for predators to handle them. Plants, on the other hand, can produce high levels of toxic compounds in their leaves. Much of the literature on induced plant defences contains reports of predators having a bad time of it if they try to target a plant that has already been attacked. However, these observations do not exclude the possibility that the poor quality of previously damaged plants is a fortuitous by-product of recovery from attack, not a sign of increased defence.

This is not the case for the organisms described by Agrawal et al.3 on page 60 of this issue. These authors have used radish plants (Raphanus raphanistrum) and water fleas (Daphnia cucullata) to provide the best evidence yet that predator-activated responses help the victims to survive an attack4. Not only that, but they show that these defences can be transmitted from an organism to its offspring. Induced defence is known to be a form of genotypic plasticity — that is, the ability of a given gene sequence (genotype) to produce various traits (phenotypes) depending on environmental conditions. But it has never previously been reported to extend across generations.

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Figure 1: Radish plant under attack by the butterfly larva Pieris rapae.
Figure 2: Mother knows best.

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  1. Department of Biology, University of Turku, Turku, FIN-20014, Finland

    Erkki Haukioja

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Haukioja, E. Bite the mother, fight the daughter. Nature 401, 22–23 (1999). https://doi.org/10.1038/43327

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