LAUSR

Many non-entomologists will be familiar with the idea that plants exploit insect vision and olfactory senses to attract not just any pollinators, but specific ones (Fenster et al., 2004). For nonpollinators, the volatiles that plants produce are more important in determining what settles on them or does not (Visser, 1986). Carnivorous plants, for example, attract their prey by scent rather than by visual means (Jürgens et al., 2009; Bertol et al., 2015). By contrast, it is advantageous to noncarnivorous plants to keep a low profile or to actively deter their insect predators. As a result of the pioneering work carried out by Ian Baldwin, Rex Cates, Erkki Haukioja, David Rhoades and Jack Schultz, we know that not only do plants have an induced response to herbivory (Haukioja & Niemelä, 1976; Rhoades & Cates, 1976; Haukioja & Hanhimäki, 1984), but also they can warn their neighbours of the attacks and prepare themselves to fight off potential attacks (Baldwin & Schultz, 1983; Rhoades, 1983). In those early days, the very idea of inter-plant communication was scorned by the establishment (Fowler & Lawton, 1984, 1985). It is now a very well-documented phenomenon with a fully-explained mechanism (Heil & Ton, 2008). In terms of developing pest management strategies, the use of resistant varieties has been around a long time (Painter, 1958), as has the idea of integrated pest management (Stern et al., 1959). The use of host plant resistance as a pest management strategy is attractive, albeit with the proviso that a certain amount of direct yield and possibly flavour must be sacrificed (Quisenberry & Schotzko, 1994; Chen et al., 2015). The possibility of using a resistance mechanism that is only ‘turned on’ when needed (i.e. induced resistance), rather than one that is ‘on’ all the time (i.e. constitutive resistance), could mean a less costly use of a plant’s limited resources (Pastor et al., 2013). If the same system also attracted natural enemies, as has been shown previously (Heil, 2008), we would have an excellent ‘organic’ pest management system. Given the way in which plant genomes can now be manipulated, such a future is definitely now achievable (Birkett & Pickett, 2014). There may, however, be even less costly ways by which insects could be fooled into avoiding attacking plants, mimicry. Back in the 1980s, I was a forest entomologist working for the UK Forestry Commission at their Northern Research Station based just outside Edinburgh. I was working on two important pests of Lodgepole pine (Pinus contorta), the pine beauty moth Panolis flammea and the European pine saw fly Neodiprion sertifer, and, as a result of the work on induced defences that