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Chemical ecology is the study integrating chemistry and biology to examine the chemical interactions among organisms and their environment. It includes signalling processes and communication between individuals, for instance in hormone responses.
Challenging a central assumption in chemical ecology, we show that polyphagous fruit flies do not rely solely on volatiles shared across hosts: compounds specific to particular hosts shape oviposition choice via finely tuned olfactory mechanisms.
How fruit quality is regulated by plant microbiome remains poorly understood. Here, the authors reveal that flavonoids secreted by tomato roots can recruit specific soil microbes to the rhizosphere and stimulate spermidine biosynthesis, which can induce vitamin accumulation in tomato fruits.
Discovery of chemosensory sensilla with different distributions on the body appendages and between the sexes of a cursorial spider, combined with evidence of olfactory mate attraction, providing insights into chemical communication in spiders.
Why workers in social insect colonies sometimes reproduce remains puzzling. Ge et al. identify two compounds: Z9-C29 and Z9-C31, acting as common colony cues triggering ovary activation in bumble bee workers in a threshold-dependent way, revealing the swarm intelligence of reproduction.
Insects have many ways of disabling plant chemical defenses during feeding. Plant phloem feeders use surplus ingested sugar to block the activation of glucosinolate toxins, providing a target for precise resistance breeding.
Bariatric surgery causes high rates of remission of type 2 diabetes; however, the mechanisms remain unresolved. A new study identifies cholic-acid-7-sulfate as a novel contributor to the metabolic benefits of bariatric surgery and an attractive target for treatment of type 2 diabetes.
