Abstract
Insect herbivores can cause great damage to plants in the field, with disastrous consequences for plant fitness in terms of seed yield and quality. Apart from direct damage to flowers and seeds, herbivores affect yield and seed quality indirectly by changing plant-pollinator interactions or by reducing outcrossing rates due to favouring self-pollination under stressful conditions. A major knowledge gap in both fundamental and applied aspects of seed yield and quality is how they are affected by indirect interactions between herbivores and pollinators. I will use a multi-level and multi-disciplinary approach to understand how herbivory affects outcrossing and subsequently seed yield and quality, through its effect on pollinators and self-incompatibility mechanisms in Brassica rapa. On a community level, I will determine what pollinator groups contribute most to outcrossing rate and how herbivory affects pollinator communities visiting Brassica flowers. On the interaction level, I will identify what effect herbivory has on floral display and how these traits in turn influence pollinator behaviour. I will study how herbivory affects pollen acceptance and self-incompatibility at different stages of flower lifetime, and how this impacts seed yield and quality. On the mechanistic level, I will unravel molecular mechanisms responsible for plasticity in self-incompatibility under herbivore-stress. My project will yield novel fundamental insights in how plants integrate defence and reproduction strategies and contribute to mechanistic understanding of self-incompatibility, pollination and outcrossing for plant breeding.
Netherlands