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Defoliation in Perennial Plants: Predictable and Surprising Results in Senna spp.

When some plants are defoliated, they may suffer by reaching a smaller final size than if they had not been damaged. Other plants may compensate for damage, ending up the same size as if they had not been damaged. Still, others may overcompensate, ending up larger after defoliation than if they had...

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Autores principales: Koptur, Suzanne, Primoli, Andrea Salas, Pimienta, María Cleopatra
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: MDPI 2023
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9919507/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36771669
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/plants12030587
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author Koptur, Suzanne
Primoli, Andrea Salas
Pimienta, María Cleopatra
author_facet Koptur, Suzanne
Primoli, Andrea Salas
Pimienta, María Cleopatra
author_sort Koptur, Suzanne
collection PubMed
description When some plants are defoliated, they may suffer by reaching a smaller final size than if they had not been damaged. Other plants may compensate for damage, ending up the same size as if they had not been damaged. Still, others may overcompensate, ending up larger after defoliation than if they had been spared from damage. We investigated the response of Senna species (Fabaceae) to defoliation, comparing two native and several ornamental congeners, all of which grow locally in southern Florida. Many Senna spp. bear foliar nectaries as nutritional resources for beneficial insects that may, in exchange, protect them from herbivores. We grew five species from seed and subjected them to three levels of defoliation for a period of several months to measure effects of leaf area removal on plant height, number of leaves, and number of extrafloral nectaries. Only three of five species displayed shorter plant heights with greater levels of damage. Two species produced fewer new leaves with moderate to severe defoliation. In only one species, the number of extrafloral nectaries decreased with defoliation, suggesting that while extrafloral nectar production may be an inducible defense in some species, producing more nectaries in response to damage does not occur in these Senna species.
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spelling pubmed-99195072023-02-12 Defoliation in Perennial Plants: Predictable and Surprising Results in Senna spp. Koptur, Suzanne Primoli, Andrea Salas Pimienta, María Cleopatra Plants (Basel) Communication When some plants are defoliated, they may suffer by reaching a smaller final size than if they had not been damaged. Other plants may compensate for damage, ending up the same size as if they had not been damaged. Still, others may overcompensate, ending up larger after defoliation than if they had been spared from damage. We investigated the response of Senna species (Fabaceae) to defoliation, comparing two native and several ornamental congeners, all of which grow locally in southern Florida. Many Senna spp. bear foliar nectaries as nutritional resources for beneficial insects that may, in exchange, protect them from herbivores. We grew five species from seed and subjected them to three levels of defoliation for a period of several months to measure effects of leaf area removal on plant height, number of leaves, and number of extrafloral nectaries. Only three of five species displayed shorter plant heights with greater levels of damage. Two species produced fewer new leaves with moderate to severe defoliation. In only one species, the number of extrafloral nectaries decreased with defoliation, suggesting that while extrafloral nectar production may be an inducible defense in some species, producing more nectaries in response to damage does not occur in these Senna species. MDPI 2023-01-29 /pmc/articles/PMC9919507/ /pubmed/36771669 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/plants12030587 Text en © 2023 by the authors. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
spellingShingle Communication
Koptur, Suzanne
Primoli, Andrea Salas
Pimienta, María Cleopatra
Defoliation in Perennial Plants: Predictable and Surprising Results in Senna spp.
title Defoliation in Perennial Plants: Predictable and Surprising Results in Senna spp.
title_full Defoliation in Perennial Plants: Predictable and Surprising Results in Senna spp.
title_fullStr Defoliation in Perennial Plants: Predictable and Surprising Results in Senna spp.
title_full_unstemmed Defoliation in Perennial Plants: Predictable and Surprising Results in Senna spp.
title_short Defoliation in Perennial Plants: Predictable and Surprising Results in Senna spp.
title_sort defoliation in perennial plants: predictable and surprising results in senna spp.
topic Communication
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9919507/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36771669
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/plants12030587
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