Fig. 1.

A cartoon depiction of the ‘attract and deter’ virally-induced plant phenotype. Certain non-persistently-transmitted plant viruses induce metabolic changes in infected plants that results in the emission of aphid-attracting volatile organic chemical (VOC) blends. In this scenario, an aphid may be attracted to an infected plant but brief feeding and sampling of epidermal cell contents reveals to the insect that virus infection has induced the accumulation of distasteful compounds. This deters the aphid from settling and will cause it to move on to find a more suitable host. During the sampling feed, viral inoculum will have been acquired (depicted by the icosahedron). Thus, induction of the ‘attract and deter’ virally-induced phenotype will increase the likelihood of an aphid transmitting inoculum to a non-infected plant. Based on findings and analyses by Carmo-Sousa et al. (2014), Donnelly et al. (2019); Mauck et al. (2010), and Westwood et al. (2013).