ANN ARBOR, Mich.—Rising carbon dioxide levels associated with global warming may affect interactions between plants and the insects that eat them, altering the course of plant evolution, research at the University of Michigan suggests.
The …
Insect damage recorded in fossil plants and the types of plants present in the fossil record are helping researchers to understand how ecological communities recover from climate change and mass extinction events, according to a Penn State paleontologist and his colleagues.
Entomologists have discovered that as adult gall wasps feed in warm weather, they change the ratio of plant chemicals so that males emerging after the winter season can recognize when they are on the right stems at the right time. The finding is the first to suggest that insects can alter the chemical composition of plants for the purpose of mate location.