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Costs and benefits of omnivore-mediated plant protection: effects of plant-feeding on Salix growth more detrimental than expected

Predators can decrease herbivore damage to plants, and this is often assumed to be beneficial to plant growth/reproduction without actual quantification. Moreover, previous studies have been biased towards strict carnivores and neglected the role of omnivorous predators in prey-suppression. Here, we...

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Autores principales: Puentes, Adriana, Björkman, Christer
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Springer Berlin Heidelberg 2017
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5487851/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28509951
http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s00442-017-3878-4
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author Puentes, Adriana
Björkman, Christer
author_facet Puentes, Adriana
Björkman, Christer
author_sort Puentes, Adriana
collection PubMed
description Predators can decrease herbivore damage to plants, and this is often assumed to be beneficial to plant growth/reproduction without actual quantification. Moreover, previous studies have been biased towards strict carnivores and neglected the role of omnivorous predators in prey-suppression. Here, we examined the costs (reduction in growth) and benefits (increase in growth) of enemy-mediated plant protection via the omnivorous (prey and plant-feeding) Orthotylus marginalis, relative to herbivory by a detrimental insect pest of Salix spp. plantations, the beetle Phratora vulgatissima. In a first experiment, we compared the cost of adult beetle versus omnivore nymph plant-feeding, and assessed the (non-) additive effects of the two types of damage. In a second experiment, we quantified the reduction in plant damage resulting from beetle-egg feeding by omnivorous nymphs and subsequent benefits to plants. We found that plant-feeding by omnivores negatively affected plant growth and this effect was similar to the cost imposed by beetle herbivory. Furthermore, simultaneous damage effects were additive and more detrimental than individual effects. While egg-predation by omnivore nymphs completely prevented beetle damage to plants, there was no difference in plant growth relative to only herbivore-damaged plants and growth was still reduced compared to control plants. Thus, despite herbivore suppression, there was no benefit to plant growth of omnivore-mediated plant protection and the negative effects of omnivore plant-feeding remained. These results are a first for an omnivorous enemy, and provide novel and timely insights on the underlying assumptions of tri-trophic associations and their use for biocontrol of insect pests. ELECTRONIC SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL: The online version of this article (doi:10.1007/s00442-017-3878-4) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.
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spelling pubmed-54878512017-07-03 Costs and benefits of omnivore-mediated plant protection: effects of plant-feeding on Salix growth more detrimental than expected Puentes, Adriana Björkman, Christer Oecologia Plant-Microbe-Animal Interactions - Original Research Predators can decrease herbivore damage to plants, and this is often assumed to be beneficial to plant growth/reproduction without actual quantification. Moreover, previous studies have been biased towards strict carnivores and neglected the role of omnivorous predators in prey-suppression. Here, we examined the costs (reduction in growth) and benefits (increase in growth) of enemy-mediated plant protection via the omnivorous (prey and plant-feeding) Orthotylus marginalis, relative to herbivory by a detrimental insect pest of Salix spp. plantations, the beetle Phratora vulgatissima. In a first experiment, we compared the cost of adult beetle versus omnivore nymph plant-feeding, and assessed the (non-) additive effects of the two types of damage. In a second experiment, we quantified the reduction in plant damage resulting from beetle-egg feeding by omnivorous nymphs and subsequent benefits to plants. We found that plant-feeding by omnivores negatively affected plant growth and this effect was similar to the cost imposed by beetle herbivory. Furthermore, simultaneous damage effects were additive and more detrimental than individual effects. While egg-predation by omnivore nymphs completely prevented beetle damage to plants, there was no difference in plant growth relative to only herbivore-damaged plants and growth was still reduced compared to control plants. Thus, despite herbivore suppression, there was no benefit to plant growth of omnivore-mediated plant protection and the negative effects of omnivore plant-feeding remained. These results are a first for an omnivorous enemy, and provide novel and timely insights on the underlying assumptions of tri-trophic associations and their use for biocontrol of insect pests. ELECTRONIC SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL: The online version of this article (doi:10.1007/s00442-017-3878-4) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users. Springer Berlin Heidelberg 2017-05-16 2017 /pmc/articles/PMC5487851/ /pubmed/28509951 http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s00442-017-3878-4 Text en © The Author(s) 2017 Open AccessThis article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made.
spellingShingle Plant-Microbe-Animal Interactions - Original Research
Puentes, Adriana
Björkman, Christer
Costs and benefits of omnivore-mediated plant protection: effects of plant-feeding on Salix growth more detrimental than expected
title Costs and benefits of omnivore-mediated plant protection: effects of plant-feeding on Salix growth more detrimental than expected
title_full Costs and benefits of omnivore-mediated plant protection: effects of plant-feeding on Salix growth more detrimental than expected
title_fullStr Costs and benefits of omnivore-mediated plant protection: effects of plant-feeding on Salix growth more detrimental than expected
title_full_unstemmed Costs and benefits of omnivore-mediated plant protection: effects of plant-feeding on Salix growth more detrimental than expected
title_short Costs and benefits of omnivore-mediated plant protection: effects of plant-feeding on Salix growth more detrimental than expected
title_sort costs and benefits of omnivore-mediated plant protection: effects of plant-feeding on salix growth more detrimental than expected
topic Plant-Microbe-Animal Interactions - Original Research
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5487851/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28509951
http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s00442-017-3878-4
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