Abstract: This chapter discusses the formation of insect galls in plants. The development of a gall involves factors that release the cells of the host from their normal morphogenetic coordinating influences. The host plant is provoked into surrounding the feeding site of the insect with several layers of highly nutritious cells, which enclose the insect in a sheltered chamber and become sole source of food for the insect. Galls differ widely in size, shape, and structure. Tissue differentiation in insect galls reveals all gradations of complexity and in most galls there are fundamental histological differences from the normal organ. The insect acts through mechanical injury but it may also apply cecidogenetic active substances that could be present in the insect's saliva, which bath the plant cells surrounding the feeding sites. Several substances, including auxins and other growth promoting substances, amino acids and amides, and numerous digestive enzymes, have been detected in the saliva of the cecidozoan. There are neither essentially new physiological processes nor any new metabolic pathways in the insect gall tissue. The gall tissue does not elaborate any typical cecidogenetic substance.
Publication Year: 1982
Publication Date: 1982-01-01
Language: en
Type: book-chapter
Indexed In: ['crossref']
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Cited By Count: 46
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