Low nutritive quality as a defense against optimally foraging herbivores
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Authors: P. Lundberg, and M. Astrom
Date: 1990
Journal: The American Naturalist
Volume: 135
Number: 4
Pages: 547-562
Summary of Methods: Using a simple optimization model, Lundberg and Astrom analyzed whether low nutritive quality in terms of low nutrient concentration can be a profitable anti-herbivory strategy for plants. Contrary to most studies, this has considered vertebrate herbivores feeding on discrete food items such as trees. The authors have shown that low nutritive quality , at least in terms of nutrient concentration, can be a profitable defense mechanism for individual plants attacked by optimally foraging herbivores. This conclusion is best suited to systems of browsers and trees (or shrubs) and it is not obvious whether this analysis has a more general validity. Only nutrient concentration as the measure of nutritive quality was considered and are therefore dealing with a common positive currency for both the plant and the herbivore. This model is consistent with the resource-availability hypothesis if it is assumed that low growth characteristic plants indeed are associated with poor habitats and high growth characteristic plants with rich habitats for reasons other than herbivory, and if you assumed that investments in carbon-based defenses are more or less independent of nutrient concentration. They also argued that the theory of optimal patch use might be a useful tool in analyzing the use of plants by herbivores.
Article Summary / Main Points: None
Vegetation Types:
MLRA Ecoregions:
Agrovoc Control Words: Riparian zones Rangelands Wildlife
Article Review Type: Refereed
Article Type: Experimental Research
Keywords: herbivory, optimization model, low nutritive quality, biomass, food-plant selection
Annotation: This model was developed in Sweden, but is based on some studies done in North America. Region, vegetation type, and season of use are not specified.
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