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Correlations between physical and chemical defences in plants: tradeoffs, syndromes, or just many different ways to skin a herbivorous cat?

journal contribution
posted on 2023-05-17, 22:50 authored by Moles, AT, Peco, B, Wallis, IR, Foley, WJ, Poore, AGB, Seabloom, EW, Vesk, PA, Bisigato, AJ, Cella-Pizarro, L, Clark, CJ, Cohen, PS, Cornwell, WK, Edwards, W, Ejrnaes, R, Gonzales-Ojeda, T, Graae, BJ, Hay, G, Lumbwe, FC, Magana-Rodriguez, B, Moore, BD, Peri, PL, Poulsen, JR, Stegen, JC, Veldtman, R, Zeipel, H, Andrew, NR, Boulter, SL, Borer, ET, Cornelissen, JHC, Farji-Brener, AG, DeGabriel, JL, Jurado, E, Kyhn, LA, Low, B, Mulder, CPH, Reardon-Smith, K, Rodriguez-Velazquez, J, De Fortier, A, Zheng, Z, Blendinger, PG, Enquist, BJ, Facelli, JM, Knight, T, Majer, JD, Martinez-Ramos, M, Peter McQuillanPeter McQuillan, Hui, FKC
  • Most plant species have a range of traits that deter herbivores. However, understanding of how different defences are related to one another is surprisingly weak. Many authors argue that defence traits trade off against one another, while others argue that they form coordinated defence syndromes.
  • We collected a dataset of unprecedented taxonomic and geographic scope (261 species spanning 80 families, from 75 sites across the globe) to investigate relationships among four chemical and six physical defences.
  • Five of the 45 pairwise correlations between defence traits were significant and three of these were tradeoffs. The relationship between species' overall chemical and physical defence levels was marginally nonsignificant (P=0.08), and remained nonsignificant after accounting for phylogeny, growth form and abundance. Neither categorical principal component analysis (PCA) nor hierarchical cluster analysis supported the idea that species displayed defence syndromes.
  • Our results do not support arguments for tradeoffs or for coordinated defence syndromes. Rather, plants display a range of combinations of defence traits. We suggest this lack of consistent defence syndromes may be adaptive, resulting from selective pressure to deploy a different combination of defences to coexisting species.

    • History

    Publication title

    New Phytologist

    Volume

    198

    Pagination

    252-263

    ISSN

    0028-646X

    Department/School

    School of Geography, Planning and Spatial Sciences

    Publisher

    Blackwell Publishing Ltd

    Place of publication

    9600 Garsington Rd, Oxford, England, Oxon, Ox4 2Dg

    Rights statement

    ?copyright 2013 The Authors New Phytologist? Copyright 2013 New Phytologist Trust

    Repository Status

    • Restricted

    Socio-economic Objectives

    Expanding knowledge in the biological sciences

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      University Of Tasmania

      Categories

      Keywords

      cyanogenisisextrafloral nectarieshairleaf toughnesslipidplant-herbivore interactionsspinestannin

      Licence

      In Copyright

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