Potential impacts of tolerance to herbivory on population dynamics of a monocarpic herb.

Stochastic LTRE analysis of the effects of herbivory on the 5 population dynamics of a perennial grassland herb 6 7

Herbivory affects patterns of plant reproductive effort and seed production

Insect floral herbivory can dramatically reduce plant reproductive success. Thus, plants should have evolved mechanisms that minimize the effect of insect herbivores, particularly in monocarpic species that must maximize fitness in a single flowering year. Tolerance is one such mechanism; however, few experiments to date evaluate underlying mechanisms of plant tolerance under natural conditions...

Demographic and Evolutionary Impacts of Native and Invasive Insect Herbivores on Cirsium canescens

Invasive species have the potential to alter trade-offs leading to selection in the populations they invade. Here we quantify the demographic and selective effects of herbivory by native insects and the introduced floral feeder Rhinocyllus conicus on Platte thistle (Cirsium canescens), a sparse monocarpic thistle endemic to North America. Rhinocyllus first invaded the Platte thistle population ...

Among-Population Variation in Tolerance to Larval Herbivory by Anthocharis cardamines in the Polyploid Herb Cardamine pratensis

Plants have two principal defense mechanisms to decrease fitness losses to herbivory: tolerance, the ability to compensate fitness after damage, and resistance, the ability to avoid damage. Variation in intensity of herbivory among populations should result in variation in plant defense levels if tolerance and resistance are associated with costs. Yet little is known about how levels of toleran...

Seed availability and insect herbivory limit recruitment and adult density of native tall thistle.

Understanding spatial and temporal variation in factors influencing plant regeneration is critical to predicting plant population growth. We experimentally evaluated seed limitation, insect herbivory, and their interaction in the regeneration and density of tall thistle (Cirsium altissimum) across a topographic ecosystem productivity gradient in tallgrass prairie over two years. On ridges and i...