Marine and terrestrial herbivores display convergent chemical ecology despite 400 million years of independent evolution

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America
Douglas B RasherMark E Hay

Abstract

Chemical cues regulate key ecological interactions in marine and terrestrial ecosystems. They are particularly important in terrestrial plant-herbivore interactions, where they mediate both herbivore foraging and plant defense. Although well described for terrestrial interactions, the identity and ecological importance of herbivore foraging cues in marine ecosystems remain unknown. Here we show that the specialist gastropod Elysia tuca hunts its seaweed prey, Halimeda incrassata, by tracking 4-hydroxybenzoic acid to find vegetative prey and the defensive metabolite halimedatetraacetate to find reproductive prey. Foraging cues were predicted to be polar compounds but instead were nonpolar secondary metabolites similar to those used by specialist terrestrial insects. Tracking halimedatetraacetate enables Elysia to increase in abundance by 12- to 18-fold on reproductive Halimeda, despite reproduction in Halimeda being rare and lasting for only ∼36 h. Elysia swarm to reproductive Halimeda where they consume the alga's gametes, which are resource rich but are chemically defended from most consumers. Elysia sequester functional chloroplasts and halimedatetraacetate from Halimeda to become photosynthetic and chemically defended. Feedi...Continue Reading

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Citations

Apr 20, 2016·Annals of Botany·Geerat J Vermeij
Jan 6, 2017·Scientific Reports·Caitlin D Kuempel, Andrew H Altieri
Feb 25, 2017·F1000Research·Deron E Burkepile, John D Parker
Jun 7, 2017·Current Biology : CB·Robert S SteneckMark E Hay
Jun 28, 2017·Critical Reviews in Biotechnology·Jean-Baptiste Ledoux, Agostinho Antunes
Aug 24, 2018·Molecular Ecology·Sabuj BhattacharyyaFarah Ishtiaq
Sep 29, 2018·Natural Product Reports·Melany P PuglisiRyan Young
Jul 1, 2020·MicrobiologyOpen·Padmanabhan Mahadevan, Michael L Middlebrooks
Feb 22, 2017·Natural Product Reports·Michiya Kamio, Charles D Derby

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