Title from publisher's bibliographic system (viewed on 05 Oct 2015).

The integrative roles of plant secondary metabolites in natural systems: a synthesis / Glenn R. Iason, Marcel Dicke, and Susan E. Hartley -- Natural selection for anti-herbivore plant secondary metabolites: a eucalyptus system / Julianne M. O'Reilly-Wapstra, Clare McArthur and Brad M. Potts -- Temporal changes in plant secondary metabolite production: patterns, causes, and consequences / Julia Koricheva and Kasey E. Barton -- Mixtures in plant chemical defence: metabolic origins and ecological benefits / Jonathan Gershenzon [and others] -- The herbivore's prescription: a pharm-ecological perspective on host plant use by vertebrate and invertebrate herbivores / Jennifer S. Forbey and Mark D. Hunter -- Volatile isoprenoids and abiotic stresses / Francesca Bagnoli, Silvia Fineschi, and Francesco Loreto -- Atmospheric change, plant secondary metabolites, and ecological interactions / Richard L. Lindroth -- The role of plant secondary metabolites in freshwater macrophyte-herbivore interactions: limited or unexplored chemical defences? / Elisabeth M. Gross and Elisabeth S. Bakker -- The soil microbial community and plant foliar defences against insects / Alan C. Gange, Rene Eschen, and Viviane Schroeder -- Phytochemicals as mediators of aboveground-belowground interactions in plants / Nicole M. van Dam -- Plant secondary metabolites and the interactions between plants and other organisms: the potential of a metabolomic approach / Susan E. Hartley [and others] -- Integrating the effects of PSMs on vertebrate herbivores across spatial and temporal scales / Ben D. Moore and Jane L. DeGabriel -- Plant secondary metabolite polymorphisms and the extended chemical phenotype / Glenn R. Iason [and others] -- From genes to ecosystems: emerging concepts bridging ecological and evolutionary dynamics / Joseph K. Bailey [and others] -- Asking the ecosystem if herbivory-inducible plant volatiles (hipvs) have defensive functions / Meredith C. Schuman and Ian T. Baldwin -- Dynamics of plant secondary metabolites and consequences for food chains and community dynamics / Marcel Dicke, Rieta Gols, and Erik H. Poelman.

Plant secondary metabolites (PSMs) such as terpenes and phenolic compounds are known to have numerous ecological roles, notably in defence against herbivores, pathogens and abiotic stresses and in interactions with competitors and mutualists. This book reviews recent developments in the field to provide a synthesis of the function, ecology and evolution of PSMs, revealing our increased awareness of their integrative role in connecting natural systems. It emphasises the multiple roles of secondary metabolites in mediating the interactions between organisms and their environment at a range of scales of ecological organisation, demonstrating how genes encoding for PSM biosynthetic enzymes can have effects from the cellular scale within individual plants all the way to global environmental processes. A range of recent methodological advances, including molecular, transgenic and metabolomic techniques, are illustrated and promising directions for future studies are identified, making this a valuable reference for researchers and graduate students in the field.