To really sympathize with rice—and to understand why it's developed tricks for bossing insects around—I need you to imagine you're a plant throwing a party.
Have you got it? Let's say it's a sushi-making party, since, you know, you're a rice plant and you already have one ingredient.
So you're
Oryza sativa and you're growing in a field somewhere in Asia, and you're enjoying your party with the other rice plants. But then a notorious moocher shows up: the brown planthopper, Nilaparavata lugens. And it brings a whole crowd of its friends.
Next thing you know, the moochers are stealing all your sushi and eating it. Which is to say, they're causing severe crop damage. Brown planthoppers are one of the world's biggest rice pests. They feed on sap from the stems, carry viruses that infect rice plants, and lay new generations of eggs on the leaves.
Since that kind ...
