Herbivory: effects on plant abundance, distribution and population growth.

ABSTRACT: Plants are attacked by many different consumers. A critical question is how often, and under what conditions, common reductions in growth, fecundity or even survival that occur due to herbivory translate to meaningful impacts on abundance, distribution or dynamics of plant populations. Here, we review population-level studies of the effects of consumers on plant dynamics and evaluate: (i) whether particular consumers have predictably more or less influence on plant abundance, (ii) whether particular plant life-history types are predictably more vulnerable to herbivory at the population level, (iii) whether the strength of plant-consumer interactions shifts predictably across environmental gradients and (iv) the role of consumers in influencing plant distributional limits. Existing studies

SUBMITTER: Maron JL 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC1635468 | biostudies-literature | 2006 Oct

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature