Insect egg-killing: a new front on the evolutionary arms-race between brassicaceous plants and pierid butterflies

A novel front-line of plant defence is the killing of herbivorous insect eggs with an HR reponse. We test whether this HR-based egg-killing plant trait has an evolutionary basis in the plant–insect arms-race. We studied the phylogenetic distribution of this trait, its egg-killing effect on and elicitation by butterflies, by screening 31 Brassicales species, and nine Pieridae species. This dataset is part of Chapter 2 of the PhD thesis "E(gg)xit strategy of plant defense: Evolution and genetics of a butterfly egg-triggered cell death"