Chemical ecology: a multidisciplinary approach

Abstract

Chemical information conveyance is an important phenomenon in the biology of plants and animals. This involves intraspecific chemical communication and its exploitation by heterospecific organisms. As a result food webs are overlaid with information webs that can have important consequences for community processes. A vast amount of research shows that both the emission of chemical information and the responses to it are often genetically controlled, and mediated by numerous interactions between an individual and its environment. Overall, it is argued that ecosystem functioning is much dependent on the responses of various community members to chemical cues, and that therefore knowledge on the chemical communication, from the genetic level to the ecosystem, is critical for our understanding of the functioning of populations, communities and ecosystems