Crop Domestication and its impact on naturally selected trophic interactions

Crop domestication is the deliberate artificial selection for plant traits that are of value to humans and are adapted to the conditions of cultivation. There is increasing evidence across multiple systems that the alteration of physical, chemical, and nutritional plant traits can profoundly affect species interactions. We reviewed the available literature to ask the following questions: 1) Does domestication in general disrupt species interactions? 2) Given that crop domestication often follows similar trends across crops, what are the general consequences of selection for particular types of plant traits? and 3) Do possibilities exist to achieve increases in crop yield without an increase in vulnerability to insect herbivores? We addressed these questions by examining whether crop domestication has reduced plant defenses and resistance to herbivory, influenced herbivore behavior and performance, affected natural enemy behavior and performance. We examined whether domestication results in consistent patterns of species interactions from the laboratory to landscape scale. We expected that the magnitude of the domestication effect on multitrophic interactions would be dependent on the selected traits, magnitude of selection, and the plasticity and adaptability of the insect assemblage.