Department of Plant Sciences, University of Cambridge, Cambridge CB23EA, United Kingdom.
Ecology. 2011 Apr;92(4):994-9. doi: 10.1890/10-0861.1.
Plant traits are influenced by herbivore diet selection, but little is known about how traits are affected by different types of herbivores. We related eight traits of 27 subalpine shrub species in South Island, New Zealand, to damage of these shrubs by introduced red deer (Cervus elaphus) and native invertebrate herbivores using phylogenetically explicit modeling. Deer preferentially consumed species that grew quickly, were low in foliar tannins, or had high leaf area per unit mass. However, these traits did not trade off against each other; rather, they could be related to different multivariate defense strategies. Although the proportion of leaves damaged by leaf-chewing invertebrates also increased with stem growth, invertebrates did not damage the same fast growing species as those preferred by deer. Other traits may also be important in determining herbivore preferences, as suggested by the high proportion of variation in herbivory explained by phylogeny. Last, we found that the composition of invertebrate herbivore communities was more similar among closely related shrubs, and consequently, the range of invertebrate-plant associations may change if introduced deer shift plant composition toward slow-growing species. Overall, our results demonstrate the importance of herbivore type and coevolved interactions for the adaptive significance of plant traits.
植物特征受食草动物饮食选择的影响，但对于不同类型的食草动物如何影响特征知之甚少。我们使用系统发育明确的建模方法，将新西兰南岛 27 种亚高山灌木物种的 8 个特征与这些灌木受到引入的赤鹿（Cervus elaphus）和本地无脊椎食草动物的损害联系起来。鹿优先食用生长迅速、叶片单宁含量低或单位质量叶片面积大的物种。然而，这些特征并没有相互权衡；相反，它们可能与不同的多维防御策略有关。尽管叶片咀嚼无脊椎动物造成的叶片损伤比例也随茎的生长而增加，但无脊椎动物不会损害与鹿偏好相同的快速生长物种。其他特征在决定食草动物偏好方面也可能很重要，正如系统发育解释的食草动物多样性的很大一部分变化所表明的那样。最后，我们发现，密切相关的灌木之间无脊椎食草动物群落的组成更为相似，因此，如果引入的鹿将植物组成转向生长缓慢的物种，无脊椎动物与植物的联系范围可能会发生变化。总的来说，我们的结果表明，食草动物的类型和共同进化的相互作用对于植物特征的适应意义很重要。
