Thomas Palo R, Gowda Juan, Högberg Peter
Department of Animal Ecology, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, S-901 83, Umeå, Sweden.
Section of Forest Science, Department of Ecological Botany, University of Umeå, S-901 87, Umeå, Sweden.
Oecologia. 1993 Mar;93(3):322-326. doi: 10.1007/BF00317873.
In East African savanna we found that leaves of mature tree species with symbiotic N fixation contained lower concentrations of polyphenols than leaves of species without this symbiosis. We suggest that the root symbiosis is costly to the plant in terms of photosynthate that otherwise could be used in chemical defense. Further, a negative relationship between concentration of polyphenols and the height of the species was found, independent of their ability to fix N. These findings suggest that root symbioses and apparency to herbivory are important factors mediating the production of chemical defenses in plants.
在东非稀树草原，我们发现具有共生固氮作用的成熟树种的叶片所含多酚浓度低于没有这种共生关系的树种的叶片。我们认为，就光合产物而言，根部共生对植物来说成本高昂，否则这些光合产物可用于化学防御。此外，还发现多酚浓度与树种高度之间存在负相关关系，与它们的固氮能力无关。这些发现表明，根部共生和对食草动物的显眼程度是介导植物化学防御产生的重要因素。
