ArticleEcology and evolution2016
High herbivore pressure favors constitutive over induced defense.
Article in Ecology and evolution, 2016. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 24 papers.
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Who cites it
24 citing papers in PubMed, 76 citations in OpenAlex.
- Scaling biodiversity-stability relationships from populations to meta-communities across trophic levels.Nature communications · 2026Article
- Chemical defense mechanisms of soybean genotypes against lepidopterans.Frontiers in plant science · 2026Review
- Contrasting Effects of Methyl Jasmonate and Methyl Salicylate on Coffee Plant Defenses against the Southern Red Spider Mite.Journal of chemical ecology · 2025Article
- Biotic pressure outweighs the influence of resource availability on physical defence investment in a tropical tree.AoB PLANTS · 2025Article
- The Effects of Anthropogenic Stressors on Above- and Belowground Phytochemical Diversity of the Wetland Grass,Plants (Basel, Switzerland) · 2024Article
- The Cost of Self-Defense: Browsing Effects in the Rare Plant SpeciesEcology and evolution · 2024Article
- The role of uncertainty and negative feedback loops in the evolution of induced immune defenses.G3 (Bethesda, Md.) · 2024Article
- Long-term strict ant-plant mutualism identity characterises growth rate and leaf shearing resistance of an Amazonian myrmecophyte.Scientific reports · 2024Article
- Multiple and contrasting pressures determine intraspecific phytochemical variation in a tropical shrub.Oecologia · 2023Article
- Silicon-based anti-herbivore defense in tropical tree seedlings.Frontiers in plant science · 2023Article
- Toxicity ofPlants (Basel, Switzerland) · 2021Review
- Metabolic response to larval herbivory in threePlant signaling & behavior · 2021Article
- Correction.Plant signaling & behavior · 2021Article
- Assessing invertebrate herbivory in human-modified tropical forest canopies.Ecology and evolution · 2021Article
- Climate and Competitive Status Modulate the Variation in Secondary Metabolites More in Leaves Than in Fine Roots ofFrontiers in plant science · 2021Article
- Herbivory and pollination impact on the evolution of herbivore-induced plasticity in defense and floral traits.Evolution letters · 2020Article
- Phenolics lie at the centre of functional versatility in the responses of two phytochemically diverse tropical trees to canopy thinning.Journal of experimental botany · 2019Article
- Induced Plant Defenses Against Herbivory in Cultivated and Wild Tomato.Journal of chemical ecology · 2019Article
- Rapid growth and defence evolution following multiple introductions.Ecology and evolution · 2019Article
- Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
4 authors at 3 institutions in 3 countries.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
unlabelledTheoretical and empirical studies show that, when past or current herbivory is a reliable cue of future attack and defenses are costly, defenses can be induced only when needed and thereby permit investment in other functions such as growth or reproduction. Theory also states that, in environments where herbivory is constantly high, constitutive defenses should be favored. Here, we present data to support the second aspect of the induced resistance hypothesis. We examined herbivore-induced responses for four species of Inga (Fabaceae), a common canopy tree in Neotropical forests. We quantified chemical defenses of expanding leaves, including phenolic, saponin and toxic amino acids, in experimental field treatments with and without caterpillars. Because young leaves lack fiber and are higher in protein than mature leaves, they typically lose >25% of their leaf area during the few weeks of expansion. We predicted that the high rates of attack would select for investment in constitutive defenses over induction. Our data show that chemical defenses were quite unresponsive to herbivory. We demonstrated that expanding leaves showed no or only small increases in investment in secondary metabolites, and no qualitative changes in the phenolic compound profile in response to herbivory. The proteinogenic amino acid tyrosine, which can be toxic at high concentrations, showed the greatest levels of induction. SYNTHESIS: These results provide some of the first support for theoretical predictions that the evolution of induced vs. constitutive defenses depends on the risk of herbivory. In habitats with constant and high potential losses to herbivores, such as tropical rainforests, high investments in constitutive defenses are favored over induction.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.