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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.
Inducible plant defenses against herbivory. Plants have evolved many defense mechanisms against insect herbivory in the 350 million years in which they have co-evolved. Such defenses can be broadly classified into two categories: (1) permanent, constitutive defenses, and (2) temporary, inducible defenses. [1]
Plant tolerance to herbivory. Tolerance is the ability of plants to mitigate the negative fitness effects caused by herbivory. It is one of the general plant defense strategies against herbivores, the other being resistance, which is the ability of plants to prevent damage (Strauss and Agrawal 1999). Plant defense strategies play important ...
Herbivore adaptations to plant defense. 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 ...
Plants are able to determine what types of herbivore species are present, and will react differently given the herbivore's traits. If certain defense mechanisms are not effective, plants may turn to attracting natural enemies of herbivore populations. For example, wild tobacco plants use nicotine, a neurotoxin, to defend against herbivores ...
In addition to plant defense mechanisms, predators assist in the regulation of these herbivore population numbers, limiting the amount of vegetation that is consumed. Several ecosystems are characterized by a trophic cascade system, in which all levels interact and impact the persistence of one another (Siliman and Angelini, 2012). [ 4 ]
A plant defense is a trait that increases plant fitness when faced with herbivory. This is measured relative to another plant that lacks the defensive trait. Plant defenses increase survival and/or reproduction (fitness) of plants under pressure of predation from herbivores. Defense can be divided into two main categories, tolerance and resistance.
Prickles on a blackberry branch. In plant morphology, thorns, spines, and prickles, and in general spinose structures (sometimes called spinose teeth or spinose apical processes), are hard, rigid extensions or modifications of leaves, roots, stems, or buds with sharp, stiff ends, and generally serve the same function: physically defending plants against herbivory.