Plant-Insect Interactions

Pollination

The act of transferring pollen from the male part of a flower to the female part of a flower.

Phytophagy

Feeding on plants (herbivorous)

Scavenging

A feeding strategy in which animals eat dead organisms (including dead plant matter).

Holometabolous

Complete metamorphosis with the following life-stages; egg, larva, pupa, adult. Larva are the immatures and they look very different from the adults; usually worm-like.

Hemimetabolous

Incomplete metamorphosis where the immature resemble the adults but some features are missing or different (wings, reproductive organs, color, shape, etc.).

Monophagous

Feed on one species of plant or plants in one genus.

Oligophagous

Feed on plants in one family.

Polyphagous

Feeds on plants in more than one family.

Specialist feeders

A phytophagous insect that can thrive only on a limited diet.

Generalist feeders

A phytophagous insect that can thrive on a varied diet.

Multivoltinism

Multiple generations complete their life cycles in a single year.

Invasive species

Species that enter new ecosystems and multiply, harming native species and their habitats; often introduced by humans.

Coevolution

An evolutionary change in a trait of the individuals in one population in response to a trait of the individuals of a second population, followed by an evolutionary response to the second population to the change in the first.

Extrafloral nectaries

Nectar-producing glands on parts of the plants other than the flowers

Dose-dependent

Toxicity increases with the amount consumed

Chemical resistance

This is a range of adaptations evolved by organisms which improve their survival rate when subjected to potentially harmful or lethal chemicals.

Detoxification

A process in which the insect is able to metabolize a toxic chemical into something not harmful.

Sequester

The ability of an insect to gather harmful chemicals from plants and deposit them inside their own tissues or glands for their own protective use.

Anemophily

Pollination by wind

Entomophily

Pollination by insects