Differential phenotypic and genetic expression of defence compounds in a plant-herbivore interaction along elevation.

ABSTRACT: Elevation gradients impose large differences in abiotic and biotic conditions over short distances, in turn, likely driving differences in gene expression more than would genetic variation per se, as natural selection and drift are less likely to fix alleles at such a narrow spatial scale. As elevation increases, the pressure exerted on plants by herbivores and on arthropod herbivores by predators decreases, and organisms spanning the elevation gradient are thus expected to show lower levels of defence at high elevation. The alternative hypothesis, based on the optimal defence theory, is that defence allocation should be higher in low-resource habitats such as those at high elevation, due to higher costs associated with tissue replacement. In this study, we analyse variation with el

SUBMITTER: Salgado AL 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5043307 | biostudies-literature | 2016 Sep

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature