Compensatory growth: Herbivore optimization or red herring?
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Authors: A. J. Belsky, W. P. Carson, C. L. Jensen, and G. A. Fox
Date: 1993
Journal: Evolutionary Ecology
Volume: 7
Number:
Pages: 109-121
Summary of Methods: Although the increased plant growth and reproduction, that occasionally follow grazing, can be interpreted in terms of overcompensation, a simpler explanation is that they demonstrate vigorous regrowth by damaged plants growing under highly favorable, but improbable, environmental conditions (low-stress, resource-rich, and competitor-free). It is the authors' belief that plants experience injury from a wide variety of sources besides herbivory, including fire, wind, freezing, heat, and trampling; rapid regrowth may been selected for by the many types of physical disturbance or extreme conditions that damage plant tissues. Rapid regrowth is more likely to have evolved as a strategy to reduce the negative impacts of all types of damage, than as a strategy to increase fitness following herbivory above ungrazed levels. There is no evolutionary justification and little evidence to support the idea that plant-herbivore mutualisms are likely to evolve. Neither life history theory nor recent theoretical models provide plausible explanations for the benefits of herbivory.
Article Summary / Main Points: None
Vegetation Types:
MLRA Ecoregions:
Agrovoc Control Words: Riparian zones Rangelands Wildlife
Article Review Type: Refereed
Article Type: Scientific Synthesis
Keywords: compensatory growth, dynamic models, grazing tolerance, herbivore optimization, overcompensation, plant antiherbivore strategies, plant-herbivore mutualism
Annotation: Grazing intensity is not specified. Season of use is not specified.
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