Cargando…

Effect of Habitat Conditions and Plant Traits on Leaf Damage in the Carduoideae Subfamily

Plant traits are the key factors that determine herbivore foraging selection. The traits serving as defense traits against herbivores represent a wide range of traits, such as chemical, physiological, morphological and life-history traits. While many studies considered plant defense traits at the wi...

Descripción completa

Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Münzbergová, Zuzana, Skuhrovec, Jiří
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Public Library of Science 2013
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3661506/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23717643
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0064639
_version_ 1782270688094060544
author Münzbergová, Zuzana
Skuhrovec, Jiří
author_facet Münzbergová, Zuzana
Skuhrovec, Jiří
author_sort Münzbergová, Zuzana
collection PubMed
description Plant traits are the key factors that determine herbivore foraging selection. The traits serving as defense traits against herbivores represent a wide range of traits, such as chemical, physiological, morphological and life-history traits. While many studies considered plant defense traits at the within-species scale, much less is known from comparisons of a wide range of closely related species. The aim of this study was to identify factors responsible for the intensity of leaf damage in the Carduoideae subfamily of Asteraceae, which hosts many invasive species and thus is potential candidate plant species that could be controlled by biological control. Specifically, we wanted to see the relative importance of habitat characteristics, plant size and plants traits in determining the degree of folivory. The study identified several defense traits able to explain differences in herbivory between species after accounting for differences in the habitats in which the species occur and the plant size. Specifically, the most important traits were traits related to the quality of the leaf tissue expressed as the content of phosphorus, water and specific leaf area, which suggests that the leaf quality had a more important effect on the degree of herbivory than the presence of specific defense mechanisms such as spines and hair. Leaf quality is thus a candidate factor that drives herbivore choice when selecting which plant to feed on and should be considered when assessing the danger that a herbivore will switch hosts when introduced to a new range.
format Online
Article
Text
id pubmed-3661506
institution National Center for Biotechnology Information
language English
publishDate 2013
publisher Public Library of Science
record_format MEDLINE/PubMed
spelling pubmed-36615062013-05-28 Effect of Habitat Conditions and Plant Traits on Leaf Damage in the Carduoideae Subfamily Münzbergová, Zuzana Skuhrovec, Jiří PLoS One Research Article Plant traits are the key factors that determine herbivore foraging selection. The traits serving as defense traits against herbivores represent a wide range of traits, such as chemical, physiological, morphological and life-history traits. While many studies considered plant defense traits at the within-species scale, much less is known from comparisons of a wide range of closely related species. The aim of this study was to identify factors responsible for the intensity of leaf damage in the Carduoideae subfamily of Asteraceae, which hosts many invasive species and thus is potential candidate plant species that could be controlled by biological control. Specifically, we wanted to see the relative importance of habitat characteristics, plant size and plants traits in determining the degree of folivory. The study identified several defense traits able to explain differences in herbivory between species after accounting for differences in the habitats in which the species occur and the plant size. Specifically, the most important traits were traits related to the quality of the leaf tissue expressed as the content of phosphorus, water and specific leaf area, which suggests that the leaf quality had a more important effect on the degree of herbivory than the presence of specific defense mechanisms such as spines and hair. Leaf quality is thus a candidate factor that drives herbivore choice when selecting which plant to feed on and should be considered when assessing the danger that a herbivore will switch hosts when introduced to a new range. Public Library of Science 2013-05-22 /pmc/articles/PMC3661506/ /pubmed/23717643 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0064639 Text en © 2013 Münzbergová and Skuhrovec http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are properly credited.
spellingShingle Research Article
Münzbergová, Zuzana
Skuhrovec, Jiří
Effect of Habitat Conditions and Plant Traits on Leaf Damage in the Carduoideae Subfamily
title Effect of Habitat Conditions and Plant Traits on Leaf Damage in the Carduoideae Subfamily
title_full Effect of Habitat Conditions and Plant Traits on Leaf Damage in the Carduoideae Subfamily
title_fullStr Effect of Habitat Conditions and Plant Traits on Leaf Damage in the Carduoideae Subfamily
title_full_unstemmed Effect of Habitat Conditions and Plant Traits on Leaf Damage in the Carduoideae Subfamily
title_short Effect of Habitat Conditions and Plant Traits on Leaf Damage in the Carduoideae Subfamily
title_sort effect of habitat conditions and plant traits on leaf damage in the carduoideae subfamily
topic Research Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3661506/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23717643
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0064639
work_keys_str_mv AT munzbergovazuzana effectofhabitatconditionsandplanttraitsonleafdamageinthecarduoideaesubfamily
AT skuhrovecjiri effectofhabitatconditionsandplanttraitsonleafdamageinthecarduoideaesubfamily