Ecological Aspects of Plant Defenses Against Insects

Abstract

In this chapter a review of the roles of herbivorous insects as selection pressure in the evolution of morphological and chemical systems of defense against herbivores in plants is given, with an emphasis on examples from the tropics. Additional aspects of this topic are touched upon in later chapters as well. The survey and analysis is by no means exhaustive, but rather is designed to illustrate some of the interesting defense strategies of plants against herbivorous insects and the implications for such interactions on food chains in the tropics.