Zhenggao Xiao, Xie Wang, Julia Koricheva, Alan Kergunteuil, Renee-Claire Le Bayon, Manqiang Liu, Feng Hu and Sergio Rasmann Already Charles Darwin in his book “The formation of vegetable mould, through the action of worms, with observations on their habits” (1881), acknowledged the fundamental role of earthworms as promoters of soil and plant health. Since…
Category: plant-animal interaction
Herbivore-induced volatile blends with both “fast” and “slow” components provide robust indirect defense in nature
Youngsung Joo, Meredith C. Schuman, Jay K. Goldberg, Sang-Gyu Kim, Felipe Yon, Christoph Brütting and Ian T. Baldwin The scent of a damaged plant can attract predators and parasitoids of attacking herbivores, resulting in higher herbivore mortality and greater plant fitness. These scents are blends of odor molecules which can be highly specific e.g….
The food preferences of predators can influence the balance between different forms of prey species
Yasuhiro Sato, Koichi Ito and Hiroshi Kudoh A predator’s choice of food can play a role in maintaining the balance between different forms of a prey species. We investigated this by observing the interactions of the brassica leaf beetle (Phaedon brassicae) and a common wild perennial herb (Arabidopsis halleri) in Japan. The herb A. halleri…
Exotic flower visitors exploit larger floral trait spaces than native visitors resulting in asymmetric resource partitioning
Jonas Kuppler, Maren K. Höfers, Wolfgang Trutschnig, Arne C. Bathke, Jesse A. Eiben, Curtis C. Daehler and Robert R. Junker The fascinating landscapes of the Hawaiian Islands harbor unique ecosystems with plants and animals that can be found nowhere else in the world. Over the last centuries, thousands of so-called exotic species (i.e. species that…
Small birches escape from insect damage
Vitali Zverev, Elena L. Zvereva and Mikhail V. Kozlov Plants carry out many functions that provide humans with oxygen, food, fibre and fuel, but their effectiveness in performing these roles is affected by herbivores, like insects, that consume them. Therefore, understanding why some plants suffer more damage from insects than their neighbours is important. Downy…
Reindeer grazing influences tundra plant nutrient uptake
Hélène Barthelemy, Sari Stark, Minna-Maarit Kytoviita and Johan Olofsson The Arctic tundra is a vast and pristine landscape under harsh climate. Due to low temperature and short summers, decomposition and mineralisation of organic matter in the soil is very slow. Plant growth is thus strongly limited by the availability of nutrients, especially soil nitrogen. Plant…
Localized conifer defensive responses to bark beetle attacks
Charles J. Mason, Caterina Villari, Ken Keefover-Ring, Stephanie Jagemann, Jun Zhu, Pierluigi Bonello, Kenneth F. Raffa Plants face multiple biological threats that can adversely affect their growth, reproduction and survival. They defend themselves from herbivores and pathogens by integrated chemical and physical defenses. These defenses can be constitutively present, heightened upon injury, or in some…
Individual and non-additive effects of exotic sap-feeders on root functional and mycorrhizal traits of a shared conifer host
Robert N. Schaeffer, Claire M. Wilson, Laura Radville, Mauri Barrett, Elizabeth Whitney, Sofia Roitman, Esther R. Miller, Benjamin E. Wolfe, Carol S. Thornber, Colin M. Orians, Evan L. Preisser Forest pests, exotic and native, are pervasive agents of tree stress and mortality worldwide. Their impacts are mediated through disruption of host functional traits that are…
REVIEW: Seed predation & plant community theory
Loralee Larios, Dean E. Pearson and John L. Maron Community ecologists seek to understand the relative strength of local processes in determining the identity and number of species that establish in any given location. Increasingly, plant ecologists have focused on plant traits and how these may determine which species can live together and which species…
The role of trait combinations in the conspicuousness of fruit display among bird-dispersed plants
Mariano Ordano, Pedro G Blendinger, Silvia B Lomáscolo, Natacha P Chacoff, Mariano S Sánchez, M Gabriela Núñez Montellano, Julieta Jiménez, Román A Ruggera & Mariana Valoy At the grocery store, look at bins of fruit. You can see that conspicuousness of fruits is very important in this trade. Fruit choice is strongly driven by vision,…
Predicting the consequences of disperser extinction: richness matters the most when abundance is low
Beatriz Rumeu, Mariano Devoto, Anna Traveset, Jens M. Olesen, Pablo Vargas, Manuel Nogales and Ruben Heleno The ongoing rapid loss of biodiversity often entails replacement of disturbance-sensitive species by disturbance-tolerant ones and thus disruption of the ecosystem functions they provide. In this line, the loss of fruit-eating (frugivorous) animals may negatively affect the long-term persistence…
Silicon boosts lucerne growth and nitrogen fluxes, but increases susceptibility to aphids
Scott N. Johnson, Susan E. Hartley, James M.W. Ryalls, Adam Frew, Jane L. DeGabriel, Michael Duncan and Andrew N. Gherlenda In ‘Lord Jim’, one of Joseph Conrad’s characters says ‘Each blade of grass has its spot on earth whence it draws its life, its strength’. This could be more accurate than he thought. Grasses take…
