Are Rare Plant Species Less Resistant Than Common Ones to Herbivores? A Multi-plant Species Study Using Above- and Below-Ground Generalist Herbivores

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aut.relation.issue9
aut.relation.journalEcology and Evolution
aut.relation.startpagee10482
aut.relation.volume13
dc.contributor.authorBürli, S
dc.contributor.authorEnsslin, A
dc.contributor.authorKempel, A
dc.contributor.authorFischer, M
dc.date.accessioned2024-02-07T02:18:31Z
dc.date.available2024-02-07T02:18:31Z
dc.date.issued2023-09-05
dc.description.abstractRare plant species are suggested to be less resistant to herbivores than common species. Their lower apparency and the fact that they often live in isolated populations, resulting in fewer herbivore encounters, might have led to the evolution of reduced defences. Moreover, their frequent lower levels of genetic diversity compared with common species could negatively affect their resistance against enemies. However, the hypothesis that plant resistance depends on plant regional and local rarity, independently of habitat and competitive and growth strategy, lacks evidence. To test this hypothesis, we assessed the performance and preference of one belowground and three aboveground generalist invertebrate herbivores from different taxonomic groups as indicators of plant resistance. Herbivores were fed a total of 62 regionally and locally rare and common plant species from Switzerland. We accounted for differences in a plant's growth and competitive strategy and habitat resource availability. We found that regionally and locally rare and common plant species did not generally differ in their resistance to most generalist herbivores. However, one herbivore species even performed better and preferred locally and regionally common plant species over rarer ones, indicating that common species are not more resistant, but tend to be less resistant. We also found that all herbivore species consistently performed better on competitive and large plant species, although different herbivore species generally preferred and performed better on different plant species. The latter indicates that the use of generalist herbivores as indicators of plant-resistance levels can be misleading. Synthesis: Our results show that rare plant species are not inherently less resistant than common ones to herbivores. Instead, our results suggest that the ability of plants to allocate resources away from defence towards enhancing their competitive ability might have allowed plants to tolerate herbivory, and to become locally and regionally common.
dc.identifier.citationEcology and Evolution, ISSN: 2045-7758 (Print); 2045-7758 (Online), Wiley, 13(9), e10482-. doi: 10.1002/ece3.10482
dc.identifier.doi10.1002/ece3.10482
dc.identifier.issn2045-7758
dc.identifier.issn2045-7758
dc.identifier.urihttp://hdl.handle.net/10292/17186
dc.languageeng
dc.publisherWiley
dc.relation.urihttps://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/ece3.10482
dc.rights© 2023 The Authors. Ecology and Evolution published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd. This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
dc.rights.accessrightsOpenAccess
dc.rights.urihttp://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
dc.subjectapparency hypothesis
dc.subjectfeeding experiment
dc.subjectgeneralist invertebrate herbivores
dc.subjectgrowth‐defence trade‐off
dc.subjectherbivore performance
dc.subjectherbivore preference
dc.subjectplant palatability
dc.subjectregional and local rarity
dc.subject31 Biological Sciences
dc.subject3103 Ecology
dc.subject0602 Ecology
dc.subject0603 Evolutionary Biology
dc.subject3103 Ecology
dc.subject3104 Evolutionary biology
dc.subject4102 Ecological applications
dc.titleAre Rare Plant Species Less Resistant Than Common Ones to Herbivores? A Multi-plant Species Study Using Above- and Below-Ground Generalist Herbivores
dc.typeJournal Article
pubs.elements-id536744
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