The theory that "water-stress" improves the nutritional quality of plants for insect herbivores and leads to outbreaks has received much support. Although studies report improved performances for insects fed water-stressed foliage others have shown that insects either avoid or grow poorly on water-stressed plant. It appears that Orthoptera and sapfeeding insects tend to benefit from plant water-stress, but leaf chewers and skeletonizers do not. The P.I. Will test the hypothesis and that the effect of water-stress in plants on herbivorous insects depends on the feeding mode of the insect. He will perform preferences and controlled rearing experiments examine the effects of water- stress in the host plant on feeding and oviposition preference, growth, survival, and fecundity in ten insect species distributed among three feeding guilds and four insect orders. Soybeans will be the experiments since the physiology and biochemistry of soybean under water-stress is well known. These experiments will enhance our knowledge of the interactions of soybean with several of its insect pests, and allow the identification of the effects of water-stress in plants on insects herbivores depends on insect feeding mode. This information will help explain the complex responses of insects to water-stressed plants.
