Fig. 4

The upper part of the E. annuus plant is modulated by girdling behavior. (a) Feeding patterns of P. rufiventris larva between the upper and lower parts of the stem one week after egg inoculation. Empty dots indicate the upper limit of the feeding pattern, whereas filled dots indicate the lower limit of the feeding pattern. Boxes indicate the 1st and 3rd quantiles. Statistic comparisons were performed between the upper and lower limits in the same treatment groups. (n.s., no significant difference; *** P < 0.001, Student’s T-test). (b-c) Larval performance in decapitated plants, with (b) larval mass and (n.s., no significant difference, Chi-squared test) (c) larval survival rates (n.s., no significant difference, Student’s T-test). (d-e) Jasmonic acid levels were measured with and without experimental girdling and egg inoculation at (d) the upper part and € the lower part of the stem. (Significant differences are indicated as different letters; P < 0.05, One-way ANOVA followed by Tukey’s HSD). (f) Normalized % proteinase inhibition in experimentally girdled and non-girdled stems (significant differences are indicated as different alphabet letters; P < 0.05, Kruskal-Wallis’ test followed by Dunn’s test). (g) Metabolic profiles of the upper and lower stems of E. annuus with and without experimental girdling. Metabolites that accumulated only at the upper part of the girdled stem are indicated with the red box and their compound names (P < 0.05, One-way ANOVA followed by Tukey’s HSD). The abundance values were log-transformed for plotting. GUS, girdled upper stem; GLS, girdled lower stem; CUS, control upper stem; CLS, control lower stem