Despite the fact that plant-derived natural products have historically been the basis for multiple useful biopesticides, screening efforts over the last quarter-century have been far more likely to focus on identifying novel pharmaceuticals than on biopesticides. A hallmark of both enterprises, however, is their relatively low success rates, with associated low return on investment. Efforts to increase the success rate of screening for drugs have included conducting ethnopharmacognostical and zoopharmacognostical surveys and examining ancient classical texts for guideposts; more recently, ecological theory has been applied to guide screening and to predict general pharmacological activity. Ecological theory can be applied far more productively, though, to predict biopesticidal activity. Among theories predicting community-wide distribution patterns of bioactive chemicals, the majority (including the carbon/nutrient balance hypothesis and the growth-differentiation hypothesis) predict only allocation patterns of defense chemicals rather than modes of action or spectra of activity. Both optimal defense theory and apparency theory can be applied to predict with some success different types of bioactivity as well as different types of allocation patterns. Moreover, recent modifications of theories that incorporate new knowledge relating to multitrophic interactions and molecular mechanisms underlying plant responses have improved the prospects for predicting sources of new biopesticides.

Chemical ecoprospecting and biopesticides

246th National Meeting (2013)

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