Companion and smart plants: scientific background to promote conservation biological control

Abstract

To attain sustainable agricultural crop protection, tools such as host plant resistance, enhanced ecosystem services (i.e. conserving natural enemies) and the deployment of companion plants should be promoted in pest management programmes. These agro system manipulations could be based on chemical ecology studies considering the interactions with natural enemies and pests, regarding specifically plant defence signalling. Further, new crop protection strategies might rise from widening the knowledge regarding how herbivore-induced plant volatiles can govern a multifaceted defence response including natural enemy recruitment, pest repellence or induced defence in neighbouring plants. It is crucial to use a multitrophic approach to understand better the interactions involving companion plants, herbivores and natural enemies in the field, increasing the knowledge to build more efficient and sustainable pest management strategies. In this review, we explore the perspectives of companion plants and their semiochemicals to promote conservation biological control according to the ‘smart plants’ concept. Further, we discuss the advantages and disadvantages of using companion plants and explore the application of companion plants in different agroecosystems using several case studies.