Hi there.

I'm starting to learn how Reddit works, so I hope you guys can help me, and hopefully this post doesn't break any rules.I've been reading up on pheromones as part of a personal speculative biology project (long story). I got as far as learning that there are three types of signalling chemicals or pheromones found in interspecies relationships and was just getting into how they compare to symbiotic relationships when I got stuck.

One example described how Ponderosa Pines use terpenes that synergize with bark beetle pheromones to trigger aggregation, drawing a bug swarm together. Apparently this reaction can also be inverted to send bugs away. "Food's gone, go away," or something like that. And then there was something about Ponderosas being able to alter their terpene "flavor" when birds visit and eat bugs found on the tree...?

This has little to do with my project, admittedly, but now I'm both interested and thoroughly confused.…