When a caterpillar chews a leaf, the plant reads chemical cues in its saliva — not just the wound — and synthesizes a herbivore-specific blend of airborne volatiles (HIPVs, cyan plume). Parasitoid wasps that hunt that exact herbivore track the blend upwind, arrive, and attack it — an indirect defense that recruits a third trophic level instead of fighting the herbivore directly.
- 🐛 Herbivore mode — place a caterpillar, watch the cyan HIPV plume build as it feeds, then a wasp flies in along the gradient and stops the damage.
- 🌬️ Wind mode — trigger mechanical damage (no insect). Leaf tissue tears identically, but only a brief grey dust puff appears — no HIPV plume, no wasp ever comes, because the signal is herbivore-specific, not a generic "I'm damaged" alarm.
Toggle between modes and re-run both to see the same leaf damage produce two very different outcomes.