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Feeding damage to plants increases with plant size across 21 Brassicaceae species

In English

Författare

  • Hella Schlinkert
  • Catrin Westphal
  • Yann Clough
  • Martin Ludwig
  • Patrick Kabouw
  • Teja Tscharntke

Summary, in English

Plant size is a major predictor of ecological functioning. We tested the hypothesis that feeding damage to plants increases with plant size, as the conspicuousness of large plants makes resource finding and colonisation easier. Further, large plants can be attractive to herbivores, as they offer greater amounts and ranges of resources and niches, but direct evidence from experiments testing size effects on feeding damage and consequently on plant fitness is so far missing. We established a common garden experiment with a plant size gradient (10-130 cm height) using 21 annual Brassicaceae species, and quantified plant size, biomass and number of all aboveground components (flowers, fruits, leaves, stems) and their proportional feeding damage. Plant reproductive fitness was measured using seed number, 1000 seed weight and total seed weight. Feeding damage to the different plant components increased with plant size or component biomass, with mean damage levels being approximately 30 % for flowers, 5 % for fruits and 1 % for leaves and stems. Feeding damage affected plant reproductive fitness depending on feeding damage type, with flower damage having the strongest effect, shown by greatly reduced seed number, 1000 seed weight and total seed weight. Finally, we found an overall negative effect of plant size on 1000 seed weight, but not on seed number and total seed weight. In conclusion, being conspicuous and attractive to herbivores causes greater flower damage leading to higher fitness costs for large plants, which might be partly counterbalanced by benefits such as enhanced competitive/compensatory abilities or more mutualistic pollinator visits.

Publiceringsår

2015

Språk

Engelska

Sidor

455-466

Publikation/Tidskrift/Serie

Oecologia

Volym

179

Issue

2

Dokumenttyp

Artikel i tidskrift

Förlag

Springer

Ämne

  • Ecology

Nyckelord

  • Antagonists
  • Herbivory
  • Plant fitness
  • Pollen beetles
  • Trophic
  • interactions

Status

Published

ISBN/ISSN/Övrigt

  • ISSN: 1432-1939