Abstract:

Plant resistance can be classified into two types: constitutive and induced resistance. Plant constitutive resistance is characteristic of plant genotype and will have negative influences on herbivores ill all its life span. Induced resistance, which is a phenotypic response, happened when plants were attacked and damaged by herbivores and pathogens and is a kind of resistance similar to immune response as seen in animals. Since 1970s in the twentieth century, studies on induced resistance in plants had witnessed a great advances in moony aspects. The present paper reviewed the recent advances in this field, especially on those done after 1997, in order that it would not iterate the former reviews on this subject. These advances included in this paper are: some new understandings and new evidences for the induced plant resistance, the trade-orris between cost-allocation and benefits plant acquired from induced defense; roles of signals, especially herbivore feeding, in inducing plant resistance, some new induced defense mechanisms against herbivores in plants, and the adaptation of insect herbivores to induced plants. In the end of the paper, the perspective of practical application of induced resistance, the future development, and the questions still need to be studied in detail were discussed.

Key words: induced resistance, herbivory, trade_off, phenotypic plasticity, signal cascade