Fortress Plant : How to Survive When Everything Wants to Eat You.

Cover -- Fortress Plant -- Copyright -- Dedication -- Acknowledgements -- Contents -- List of Figures -- List of Plates -- Black and white plates -- Colour plates -- Abbreviations -- Plates -- Colour plates -- Prologue -- Chapter 1: How to get your five-a-day -- Chapter 2: Recognizing the enemy -- Early warning systems -- Danger signals -- Detecting the non-self -- The nitty-gritty of receptors -- Detecting bugs -- Chapter 3: Call to arms -- Pain relief and plant defence -- Immunizing plants-you´ve got to be joking! -- Aspirin is not just for headaches -- Help! I´ve been wounded -- Larval feeding and WASPs -- The light side of caterpillar feeding -- Whispers in the wind -- Recruiting carnivorous bodyguards -- Plant galls and defence -- Enlisting the help of feathered friends -- The benefits of talking to oneself -- Dealing with multiple attackers -- Getting the better of defences -- Chapter 4: Weapons of war -- Let´s get physical -- Structural reinforcements -- Chemical warfare -- It pays to be hairy -- Double trouble-hairy and toxic -- Plants that sting -- Let´s get really physical -- Defence can be tough -- Chapter 5: Deadly chemistry -- Plant poisons -- Smoking kills -- Steroidal nightmares -- Cabbages with attitude -- Chemical weapons made to order -- Dying to save you -- Silencing the enemy -- The rhythm of defence is a wonderful thing -- Chapter 6: A little help from your friends -- Plants and fungi can live together peacefully -- Forming a relationship -- Bacterial allies -- Preventing greed in a mutualistic symbiosis -- Microbial protectors -- Establishing a network of friends -- Hidden helpers -- Making your mind up-endophyte or pathogen? -- Ants to the rescue -- Chapter 7: The never-ending struggle -- Putting a price on defence -- Seeing patterns in plant defence -- Plant invasions and defences -- Shifting defences.

To be seen is to be eaten -- Availability of resources -- Controlling defence is a balancing act -- Evolution of plant defence-where do beneficial microbes fit in? -- Looking for patterns in the evolution of plant defence -- Some things are just too complicated to repeat -- Why are there so many defence chemicals? -- What about the genes during co-evolution? -- Plant defence-war without end -- Chapter 8: Martial arts for plants -- It´s all about breeding -- How to breed for resistance -- Resistance comes in many forms -- Mixing things up-making life difficult for the attacker -- Immunizing plants-it´s no joke -- Airborne defence -- Companions in arms -- Genetic engineering to protect crops -- Silencing the genes -- CRISPR plant defence -- Genetic engineering and crop protection-where to next? -- Epilogue -- Glossary -- References -- Chapter 1 -- Chapter 2 -- Chapter 3 -- Chapter 4 -- Chapter 5 -- Chapter 6 -- Chapter 7 -- Chapter 8 -- Index.

The survival of plants on our planet is nothing short of miraculous. They are food for a vast array of organisms, ranging from bacteria and fungi, through to insects, and even other plants. Dale Walters explores the fascinating array of evolutionary defences plants employ to survive and avoid being eaten.

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Electronic reproduction. Ann Arbor, Michigan : ProQuest Ebook Central, 2024. Available via World Wide Web. Access may be limited to ProQuest Ebook Central affiliated libraries.