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Environmental context determines within- and potential between-generation consequences of herbivory

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Abstract

Plant tolerance to herbivory may depend on local environmental conditions. Models predict both increased and decreased tolerance with increasing resources. Transgenerational effects of herbivory may result in cross-generation tolerance. We evaluated within- and potential between-generation consequences of deer browsing in light-gap and understory habitats in the forest-edge herb, Campanulastrum americanum. Plants were assigned to deer-browsed, simulated-herbivory, and control (undamaged) treatments in the two light environments. In light gaps, plants were eaten earlier, more frequently, and had less vegetative recovery relative to uneaten plants than in the understory. As a result, browsed light-gap plants had a greater reduction in flowers and fruit than understory plants. This reduced tolerance was in part because deer browsing damaged plants in light gaps more than those in the understory. However, in the simulated herbivory treatment, where damage levels were similar between light habitats, plants growing in high-resource light gaps also had reduced tolerance of herbivory relative to those in the forest understory. C. americanum’s reproductive phenology was delayed by reduced light and the loss of the apical meristem. As a result, deer-browsed plants in the light gap flowered slightly later than uneaten plants in the understory. C. americanum has a polymorphic life history and maternal flowering time influences the frequency of annual and biennial offspring. The later flowering of deer-browsed plants in light gaps will likely result in a reduced frequency of high-fitness annual offspring and an increase in lower fitness biennial offspring. Therefore, additional between-generation costs of herbivory are expected relative to those predicted by fruit number alone.

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Acknowledgments

We thank Mountain Lake Biological Station (University of Virginia) for logistical support, L. Dierkes and C. Jenkins for field assistance, two anonymous reviewers for comments on an earlier version of the manuscript, and NSF REU-Sites grant DBI-0453380 to M. L. B. S. and DEB-0316298 to L. F. G. for financial support. The experiment complied with the current laws and the authors have no conflict of interest.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Mountain Lake Biological Station, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, VA, 22904, USA

    Susan M. Lin

  2. Department of Biology, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, VA, 22904-4328, USA

    Laura F. Galloway

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  1. Susan M. Lin
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  2. Laura F. Galloway
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Correspondence to Laura F. Galloway.

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Communicated by Judith Bronstein.

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Lin, S.M., Galloway, L.F. Environmental context determines within- and potential between-generation consequences of herbivory. Oecologia 163, 911–920 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00442-010-1634-0

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