Feb 14, 2014 12:33 PM EST By Jaleesa Baulkman, UniversityHerald Reporter

Insects are picky eaters.

Whether or not they end up feeding on a particular plant depends not only on the species to which the plant belongs, but the quality of the individual plant and the variety of other plants growing around it, according to a recent study.

Researchers Olga Kostenko of the Netherlands Institute of Ecology found that the "neighborhood" in which a plant grows is more important for insects in the end than how the plant tastes.

For the study, Kostenko planted at least 1750 plants on x-arable fields at Mossel (Ede, the Netherlands), with remarkable results to weigh the importance of the factors insects consider when choosing to feed on a plant. Prior to the study, most knowledge about the role of plant quality so far had been based on controlled laboratory experiments.

She not only that plant quality wasn't the most important factor; she also discovered that the way the plants tasted to insects was actually affected by the neighborhood in which they grew.

Kostenko's research found that insects did not only consider the present neighborhood.  She found that "even plants and insects that inhabited the same spot in the past had an effect on the chemical composition of the next generation of plants," according to a news release. The changes in turn affected the number and the performance of insects feeding on an individual plant.

"So for ragwort, having good -- or bad -- neighbors is literally a matter of life and death," according to a news release.

Kostenko's research could have a major impact on attempts to use insects for controlling crops or attacking outbreak species. 

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