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Herbivores are dependent on plants for food, and have coevolved mechanisms to obtain this food despite the evolution of a diverse arsenal of plant defenses against herbivory. Herbivore adaptations to plant defense have been likened to "offensive traits" and consist of those traits that allow for increased feeding and use of a host. [1]
Plant defense against herbivory or host-plant resistance is a range of adaptations evolved by plants which improve their survival and reproduction by reducing the impact of herbivores. Many plants produce secondary metabolites , known as allelochemicals , that influence the behavior, growth, or survival of herbivores.
Shade tolerant plants have a range of adaptations to help them survive the altered quantity and quality of light typical of shade environments. Excess light occurs at the top of canopies and on open ground when cloud cover is low and the sun's zenith angle is low, typically this occurs in the tropics and at high altitudes.
Plant perception is the ability of plants to sense and respond to the environment by adjusting their morphology and physiology. [1] Botanical research has revealed that plants are capable of reacting to a broad range of stimuli, including chemicals, gravity, light, moisture, infections, temperature, oxygen and carbon dioxide concentrations, parasite infestation, disease, physical disruption ...
Organisms begin as naive individuals and learning allows them to obtain the knowledge they need to adapt and survive. A learned adaptive behavior must have a psychological, as well as a biological, component; without the integration of these two disciplines, behavioral adaptation cannot occur.
In zoology (particularly in ethology), habit usually refers to aspects of more or less predictable behaviour, instinctive or otherwise, though it also has broader application. Habitus refers to the characteristic form or morphology of a species. In botany, the plant habit is the characteristic form in which a given species of plant grows. [1]
Seminal examples of local adaptation come from plants that adapted to different elevations [10] or to tolerate heavy metals in soils. [11] Interactions among species (e.g. herbivore-plant interactions) can also drive local adaptation, though do not seem to be as important as abiotic factors, at least for plants in temperate ecosystems. [12]
Phenotypic plasticity refers to some of the changes in an organism's behavior, morphology and physiology in response to a unique environment. [1] [2] Fundamental to the way in which organisms cope with environmental variation, phenotypic plasticity encompasses all types of environmentally induced changes (e.g. morphological, physiological, behavioural, phenological) that may or may not be ...