Population-Specific Plant-To-Plant Signaling in Wild Lima Bean

The exposure to volatiles from damaged plants can increase the resistance of the neighboring plants to herbivores. Studies have demonstrated that the strength of this response depends on the level of relatedness between the interacting plants. Indeed, a field study with Phaseolus lunatus found that the responses to induced volatiles were population-specific; individuals exposed to damaged conspecifics from the 'local' population exhibited greater resistance to herbivores than those exposed to damaged conspecifics from 'foreign' populations. Here, we repeated this study in the laboratory by placing undamaged plants near damaged plants from either their local or a foreign population. The former plants experienced less herbivory than the latter after a subsequent challenge by a generalist herbivore. To understand the role of the volatiles underlying this observed specificity, we explored the variability in the constitutively released volatiles and volatiles released after mechanical or herbivore damage among the three tested populations of P. lunatus. The total volatile emissions were 5× and 10× higher from the mechanically and herbivore-damaged plants, respectively, compared to the undamaged plants. The populations differed in their relative ratios of dominant constitutive compounds, but no pattern was observed that could explain the differential responses to induced volatiles among the populations. Overall, this study confirms the population-specific volatile-mediated interactions in P. lunatus.