Published in Scientific Papers. Series B, Horticulture, Vol. LXIV, Issue 1
Written by Vlad Ioan POPA, Ioana Mihaela GEORGESCU, Constantin Daniel POTOR, Dorel HOZA
Plants have to deal with a diverse assemblage of herbivores, which can consume significant amounts of biomass and reduce plant reproductive success. Consequently, plants have developed a diversity of structures and evolutionary strategies to provide protection against herbivory. One of these strategies is represented by extrafloral nectaries, which are nectar secretory structures involved in the indirect defense of plants. Extrafloral nectaries attract adult and predatory parasitoids, leading to a significant reduction in the number of pests that attack plants. Plant-insect interactions are old, and formed the structural basis of many of the terrestrial environments. These relationships directly involve a wide variety of consumption-resource networks, placing plants under enormous pressure of evolution caused by higher trophic levels, especially by herbivores. This paper aims to present a short review about the properties and role in defense of extrafloral nectaries.
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