Ecology Letters (2005) 8, 1256-1263

Päivi Lehtonen, Marjo Helander, Michael Wink, Frank Sporer and Kari Saikkonen (2005)
Transfer of endophyte-origin defensive alkaloids from a grass to a hemiparasitic plant
Ecology Letters 8 (12), 1256-1263
Abstract: Plants growing in natural environments experience myriad interactions with a diverse assemblage of pathogens, parasites and mutualists. Many of these interactions involve symbiotic bacteria and fungi, but they also include macroparasitic plants. In this study, we investigated the interactions among a host grass (Lolium pratense, ex., Festuca pratensis), its symbiotic endophytic fungus (Neotyphodium uncinatum), a root hemiparasitic plant (Rhinanthus serotinus) of the host grass and a generalist herbivore (aphid Aulacorthum solani) of the hemiparasite. We demonstrate that the hemiparasitic plant acquires defending mycotoxins produced by the endophytic fungus living within their shared host grass. The uptake of defensive mycotoxins from the endophyte-infected host grass enhances the resistance of the hemiparasitic plant to the generalist aphid herbivore. Endophyte infection increases the performance of the hemiparasitic plant, but reduces the growth of the host grass. In other words, the mutualistic endophytic fungus becomes parasitic in the presence of the hemiparasitic plant. Our results suggest that the outcomes of grass-endophyte interactions are conditional on the complexity of community-level interactions; thus, the outcome of multispecies interactions may not be predictable from pair-wise combinations of species.
(The abstract is excluded from the Creative Commons licence and has been copied with permission by the publisher.)
Link to article at publishers website

Research topic(s) for pests/diseases/weeds:
environment - cropping system/rotation

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Pest and/or beneficial records:

Beneficial	Pest/Disease/Weed	Crop/Product	Country	Quarant.
	Aulacorthum solani
	Epichloë (genus)
	Rhinanthus serotinus (weed)	Lolium (crop)