title: Little peaks with big effects: establishing the role of minor plant volatiles in plant-insect interactions.
abstract: Plants emit complex mixtures of volatile organic compounds from floral and vegetative tissue, especially after herbivore damage, so it is difficult to associate individual compounds with activity towards pollinators, herbivores or herbivore enemies. Attention has usually focused upon the biological activity of the most abundant compounds; but here, we detail a number of reports implicating minor volatiles in attractant or deterrent roles. This is not surprising given the exquisite sensitivity of insect olfactory systems for certain substances. In this context, it is worth reconsidering the methods involved in sampling volatile compounds from plants, measuring their abundance and determining their biological activity to ensure that minor compounds are not overlooked. Here, we describe various experimental approaches and chemical and statistical methods that should increase the chance of detecting minor compounds with major biological activities.
authors.affiliation: Department of Biochemistry, Max Planck Institute for Chemical Ecology, 07745, Jena, Germany.
authors.forename: Andrea
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Clavijo McCormick
authors.forename: Jonathan
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Gershenzon
authors.forename: Sybille B
authors.initials: SB
authors.lastname: Unsicker
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D060434:Herbivory; D007313:Insecta / Q000502:physiology*; D010944:Plants / Q000737:chemistry*; D054817:Pollination; D055549:Volatile Organic Compounds / Q000737:chemistry*
chemical_list: D055549:Volatile Organic Compounds
keywords: gas chromatography; herbivore-induced volatile emission; herbivory; indirect plant defence; multivariate statistics; pollination