- 期刊
- OpenAccess
Visionary Words and Realistic Achievements: One Hundred Years of Cecidology
現況及未來展望：百年來的癭學研究
摘要
Insect-induced plant galls were known to humans for long, mostly for use as drugs and for extracting ink-like material used in writing and painting. Until the early decades of the 19^(th) century, those who studied galls and their inhabitants referred to these plant abnormalities as galls only. Friedrich Thomas first used the term 'cecidium' in 1873, deriving it from kékis (Greek), which means 'something abnormal with an oozing discharge'. Consequently, the study of galls came to be known as Cecidology. One significant name in cecidology is Alessandro Trotter (1874~1967). He founded Marcellia, a journal dedicated to cecidology, in 1902, which serviced science until the 1980s.The inaugural issue of Marcellia features his article 'Progresso ed importanza degli studi cecidologici' (Progress and importance of cecidological studies). This article includes many thought-provoking statements. In the present article, I have reflected on a few selected passages from the Trotter article, evaluating the progress we have made in the last c. 100 years. We have brought to light scores of unknown gall systems and their inducing agents. Between the 1930s and 1980s, the European School of Cecidology established by Ernst Küster in Gießen, Germany, followed by Henri-Jean Maresquelle and Jean Meyer in Strasbourg, France blazed new trails in interpreting galls and their relationships with the inducing and associated arthropods, using an autecological approach. In the late 1970s. Peter Price and Warren Abrahamson in America paved a new approach to gall studies and associated arthropods using a demographic, synecological approach. It has to be noted that Helmut Zwölfer in Bayreuth, Germany simultaneously started investigating arthropod-induced galls using population and community ecological approach. Irrespective of the tremendous advances we have made in the demographic ecology of gall-inducing arthropods and their specialized niche of galls, our efforts to characterize the mechanism of gall development has been rather meagre. Currently we have been reasonably successful in clarifying the steps in the physiology of gall growth and differentiation with the characterization of auxin and cytokinin precursors in the involved arthropod's saliva. However, we have not been able to precisely clarify the earliest step involved - the triggering factor - which usually occurs within the first 24 h of attack of plant tissue by the inducing arthropod. While acknowledging the explanations, the present article highlights the gap that occurs in the triggering of galls. This article concludes with a reminder of insights demonstrated in pathogenic fungus-plant interactions, and how the value of these insights are worthy of exploration in the context of arthropod-induced galls.
並列摘要
人類發現昆蟲引發植物癭已有相當一段時間，最為人知的是作為藥用或是提煉墨水的材料，用於書寫或繪畫。直至19世紀初期，研究蟲癭及其造癭者也僅以gall（癭）稱呼這類植物不正常的生長。Cecidium一詞則是由Friedrich Thomas於1873年最早使用，由希臘文的kékis衍生而來，意指具有滲漏產出的不正常物，此後Cecidology一詞便成為癭學的專有名詞。癭學中的另一巨擘是Alessandro Trotter（1874-1967），他在1902年創辦了癭學的專刊Marcella（1902-1980s），Marcella 的第一篇文章即是由他本人撰寫的《Progresso ed importanza degli studi cecidologici》（癭學研究的重要性與進展），其中包含許多具有啟發性的陳述。在本文中，我選錄了Trotter文章中的部分段落，從而評估過去百年的癭學發展。此期間的研究幫助我們在未知的蟲癭體系與造癭者研究帶來了一道曙光。在1930-1980年代，Ernst Küster於德國的Gießen開創了歐洲癭學派，後繼的Henri-Jean Maresquelle與Jean Meyer等在法國的史特拉斯堡首先以個體學的角度探討癭及其造癭節肢動物。在1970年代後期，美國的Peter Price與Warren Abranhamson運用群落生態學及人口統計學的研究方法簡化了癭學的研究方法。同一時期，Helmut Zwölfer也在德國的拜羅伊特開始用族群及群落生態學的方式進行癭的調查。相對造癭節肢動物的個體統計及棲位研究方法的豐碩成果，在癭形成機制的研究進展就略顯薄弱。近來我們已能依據生理的改變，將癭的生長與分化劃分出不同的階段，並歸納出節肢動物唾液中的植物生長素及細胞激素的前驅物，然而，我們仍無法釐清最初始的階段所涉及的部分-啟動因子-通常於造癭節肢動物攻擊植物組織後的24小時內。在認知目前的狀況下，本文即著重於癭的形成初期的研究缺口，並輔以具有致病力之真菌與植物交互作用之實例，最終以這些洞見提供在節肢動物癭方面的研究潛力與價值作結。