Plant quality and predators are important factors affecting herbivore population growth, but how they interact to regulate herbivore populations is not well understood. We manipulated jasmonate-induced plant resistance, exposure to the natural predator community and herbivore density to test how these factors jointly and independently affect herbivore population growth. On low-resistance plants, the predator community was diverse and abundant, promoting high predator consumption rates. On high-resistance plants, the predator community was less diverse and abundant, resulting in low predator consumption rate. Plant resistance only directly regulated aphid population growth on predator-excluded plants. When predators were present, plant resistance indirectly regulated herbivore population growth by changing the impact of predators on the herbivorous prey. A possible mechanism for the interaction between plant resistance and predation is that methyl salicylate, a herbivore-induced plant volatile attractive to predators, was more strongly induced in low-resistance plants. Increased plant resistance reduced predator attractant lures, preventing predators from locating their prey. Low-resistance plants may regulate herbivore populations via predators by providing reliable information on prey availability and increasing the effectiveness of predators.

The host-associated microbiome is vital to host immunity and pathogen defense. In aquatic ecosystems, organisms may interact with environmental bacteria to influence the pool of potential symbionts, but the effects of these interactions on host microbiome assembly and pathogen resistance are unresolved. We used replicated bromeliad microecosystems to test for indirect effects of arthropod–bacteria interactions on host microbiome assembly and pathogen burden, using tadpoles and the fungal amphibian pathogen Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis as a model host–pathogen system. Arthropods influenced host microbiome assembly by altering the pool of environmental bacteria, with arthropod–bacteria interactions specifically reducing host colonization by transient bacteria and promoting antimicrobial components of aquatic bacterial communities. Arthropods also reduced fungal zoospores in the environment, but fungal infection burdens in tadpoles corresponded most closely with arthropod-mediated patterns in microbiome assembly. This result indicates that the cascading effects of arthropods on the maintenance of a protective host microbiome may be more strongly linked to host health than negative effects of arthropods on pools of pathogenic zoospores. Our work reveals tight links between healthy ecosystem dynamics and the functioning of host microbiomes, suggesting that ecosystem disturbances such as loss of arthropods may have downstream effects on host-associated microbial pathogen defenses and host fitness.

Plants adapt to balance growth–defense tradeoffs in response to both biotic and abiotic stresses. Green leaf volatiles (GLVs) are released after biotic and abiotic stresses and function as damage-associated signals in plants. Although, GLVs enter plants primarily through stomata, the role of stomatal regulation on the kinetics of GLV uptake remains largely unknown. Here, we illustrate the effect of stomatal closure on the timing and magnitude of GLV uptake. We closed stomata by either exposing maize (Zea mays) plants to darkness or applying abscisic acid, a phytohormone that closes the stomata in light. Then, we exposed maize seedlings to (Z)-3-hexen-1-ol and compared its dynamic uptake under different stomatal conditions. Additionally, we used (E)-3-hexen-1-ol, an isomer of (Z)-3-hexen-1-ol not made by maize, to exclude the role of internal GLVs in our assays. We demonstrate that closed stomata effectively prevent GLV entry into exposed plants, even at high concentrations. Furthermore, our findings indicate that reduced GLV uptake impairs GLV-driven induction of biosynthesis of sesquiterpenes, a group of GLV-inducible secondary metabolites, with or without herbivory. These results elucidate how stomata regulate the perception of GLV signals, thereby dramatically changing the plant responses to herbivory, particularly under water stress or dark conditions.