Episodic herbivory, plant density dependence, and stimulation of aboveground plant production.

ABSTRACT: Herbivory is a major energy transfer within ecosystems; an open question is under what circumstances it can stimulate aboveground seasonal primary production. Despite multiple field demonstrations, past theory considered herbivory as a continuous process and found stimulation of seasonal production to be unlikely. Here, we report a new theoretical model that explores the consequences of discrete herbivory events, or episodes, separated in time. We discovered that negative density (biomass) dependence of plant growth, such as might be expected from resource limitation of plant growth, favors stimulation of seasonal production by infrequent herbivory events under a wide range of herbivory intensities and maximum plant relative growth rates. Results converge to those of previous models under

SUBMITTER: Ritchie ME 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7319133 | biostudies-literature | 2020 Jun

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature