Fighting insects like a wild plant?
The impact of crop domestication on responses to insect
attack was considered at the 15th Symposium on Insect Plant Interactions (August 17–22, 2014; University of
Neuchaˆtel, Switzerland). Plants subjected to artificial
selection may have lost defence traits, used for protection
against insects in nature, especially if crops are selected
for yield in a pesticide treated background. Conversely,
insect resistance may increase if breeders purposely select
for insect resistance, although such breeding is often
empirical and without characterisation of the underpinning mechanism. Palmgren et al. [12] hypothesised that
traits allowing plants to withstand adverse environmental
conditions have been lost while selecting for traits that
made plants easier to harvest and/or resulted in higher
yield. de Lange et al. [13] reviewed resistance to biotic
stress in teosintes (wild maize species) which appear to
have greater resistance against a number of pests than
cultivated maize.