Leaf vibrations produced by chewing provide a consistent acoustic target for plant recognition of herbivores

Plant defenses that respond to the threat of herbivory require accurate sensing of the presence of herbivores. Herbivory cues include mechanical damage, elicitors from insect saliva or eggs, and airborne volatiles emitted by wounded plants. Plants can also respond to the leaf vibrations produced by chewing herbivores. However, previous studies of the influence of feeding vibrations on plant defenses have been limited to single species pairs. In this study we test the hypothesis that chewing vibrations differ among herbivore species, both in their acoustic features and in their effect on plant defense responses. We first compare the acoustic traits of larval feeding vibrations in ten species from six families of Lepidoptera and one family of Hymenoptera. We then test responses of A. thaliana plants to variation among feeding vibrations of different individuals of one species, and to feeding vibrations of two species, including a pierid butterfly and a noctuid moth. All feeding vibrations...