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Updated: May 24, 2026

Characterizing Herbivore Resistance Mechanisms: Spittlebugs on Brachiaria spp. as an Example
Published on: June 19, 2011
Specialist versus generalist insect herbivores and plant defense
Jared G Ali1, Anurag A Agrawal
1Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Cornell University, E425 Corson Hall, Ithaca, NY 14853-2701, USA. jga54@cornell.edu
Abstract:
There has been a long-standing hypothesis that specialist and generalist insects interact with plants in distinct ways. Although many tests exist, they typically compare only one species of each, they sometimes confound specialization and feeding guild, and often do not link chemical or transcriptional measures of the plant to actual resistance. In this review, we synthesize current data on whether specialists and generalists actually differ, with special attention to comparisons of their differential elicitation of plant responses. Although we find few consistencies in plant induction by specialists versus generalists, feeding guilds are predictive of differential plant responses. We outline a novel set of predictions based on current coevolutionary hypotheses and make methodological suggestions for improved comparisons of specialists and generalists.
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