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Geographic structure in metabolome and herbivore community co‐occurs with genetic structure in plant defence genes
Author(s) -
Bernhardsson Carolina,
Robinson Kathryn M.,
Abreu Ilka N.,
Jansson Stefan,
Albrectsen Benedicte R.,
Ingvarsson Pär K.
Publication year - 2013
Publication title -
ecology letters
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 6.852
H-Index - 265
eISSN - 1461-0248
pISSN - 1461-023X
DOI - 10.1111/ele.12114
Subject(s) - herbivore , biology , ecology , local adaptation , adaptation (eye) , metabolome , plant defense against herbivory , population , evolutionary biology , gene , metabolomics , genetics , bioinformatics , demography , neuroscience , sociology
Plant–herbivore interactions vary across the landscape and have been hypothesised to promote local adaption in plants to the prevailing herbivore regime. Herbivores that feed on European aspen ( Populus tremula ) change across regional scales and selection on host defence genes may thus change at comparable scales. We have previously observed strong population differentiation in a set of inducible defence genes in Swedish P. tremula . Here, we study the geographic patterns of abundance and diversity of herbivorous insects, the untargeted metabolome of the foliage and genetic variation in a set of wound‐induced genes and show that the geographic structure co‐occurs in all three data sets. In response to this structure, we observe local maladaptation of herbivores, with fewer herbivores on local trees than on trees originated from more distant localities. Finally, we also identify 28 significant associations between single nucleotide polymorphisms SNP s from defence genes and a number of the herbivore traits and metabolic profiles.