Percentage leaf herbivory across vascular plant species
How much leaf could a leaf-eater eat if a leaf-eater could eat leaf? This is one of the questions recently answered by PDF Martin Turcotte, former technician Christina Thomsen and recent MSc graduate Ryan Godfrey (Johnson Lab), in their paper: “Percentage leaf herbivory across vascular plant species”, which recently appeared in Ecology. Plants and herbivorous animals make up ~ 75% of the macroscopic diversity and biomass on earth. The consumption of plants by animals (i.e., herbivory) represents one of nature’s most important ecological interactions because it provides the main conduit of energy from plants to animal communities. In this paper, Martin and co. publish the largest dataset of annual rates of herbivory, which includes 2641 population-level estimates of herbivory from 1145 plant species and 189 studies. This offers a powerful dataset to answer questions such as: Are invasive species attacked less than native plant species? Are plants in the tropics more heavily hit by herbivores than plants in cooler climates? How have plant defenses evolved during the evolutionary history of vascular plants?
Congratulations on this accomplishment!