In a paper published in the journal Science today, scientists have discovered that plants naturally evolve to protect themselves from insect attack, for example from aphids (greenfly and blackfly), but do this as a trade-off with their ability to compete with other plants.

The scientists from the Universities of Zürich, Copenhagen, California (at Davies) and Cornell University worked with the Insect Survey team at the UK’s Rothamsted Research, to examine natural populations of the plant Arabidopsis thaliana in Europe. They compared the geographic variation in the profiles of glucosinolates (a group of chemical compounds that plants can use to protect themselves) in the plants with the abundance of two specialist aphids from 39 years of field data collected through the Rothamsted Research Insect Survey.

They found that phytophagous (plant eating) insects may force the rapid evolution of plants through natural selection, with genes resistant to insect attack being favoured. But in areas where the probability of phytophagous insects damage is lower these genes do not appear to be favoured. These authors argue that this finding “highlights the potency of natural enemies as selective forces”.

Dr Richard Harrington, Head on the Rothamsted Insect Survey, said “This study is one of a large range of applications to which Rothamsted's insect data are put and demonstrates the value and versatility of long-term, standardised datasets.”

Dr Harrington continued that both the paper on plants defences, published this month, and the continued work of the Insect Survey have national and international importance for the research underpinning sustainable agriculture. Workers contributing to the study have fostered collaborative links with other researchers and shared data collected for nearly 170 years to ensure that others can benefit from these publically supported resources, he said.

The Science study is available here.

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