Chemical Ecology of Plant and Insect Pests

Dear Colleagues,

Chemical ecology covers the field of interaction between organisms by means of chemicals which they produce and release into the environment. This is an extremely wide field of research, both because of the abundance of species of organisms interacting in this way, and because of the large variety of chemical compounds involved in the interactions. This area belongs to interdisciplinary research, since it requires both knowledge of biology, ecology and chemistry, and the use of research methods of the sciences mentioned above. Modern chemical ecology was born around 1959, when landmark works on insects and plants were published: specifically, when Adolf Butenandt identified the first insect pheromone and when Gottfried S Fraenkel published the landmark paper “The Raison d’être of Secondary Plant Substances”.

Since then, both plants and (especially) insects and their interactions have received numerous studies. It is well known that in order to regulate the abundance of plant pests using environmentally friendly means, without the use of insecticides, it is necessary to know their biology and ecology, including chemical ecology, as best as possible. Much more research needs to be carried out to understand why a phytophagous insect pest successfully attacks; why it feeds on plants of one species, or even variety, but does not touch others; how plants defend themselves against pests using chemical means of their own production; how the signals necessary for mobilizing this defence are produced and transmitted; which secondary metabolites become as important as the primary ones; and which of them can become a target for creating pest-resistant varieties of cultivated plants using genetic engineering methods.

We welcome your contributions to the research on these and many other issues not mentioned here, related to the interactions by means of chemical compounds in plants and phytophagous insects that feed and damage them, and therefore become pests. We hope that this Special Issue will expand the boundaries of knowledge and generate new data and information within the field of chemical ecology, which is necessary both for botanists who study plants and agronomists who cultivate them, as well as for entomologists and plant protection specialists.

Prof. Dr. Vincas Būda
Guest Editor

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• semiochemicals
• attractants
• repellents
• bioassay
• bioactive metabolites
• allelopathic interactions
• plant chemical defence
• plant–insect interaction
• insect–plant interaction
• chemical arm race