In a significant advance in ecological research, the Herbivory Variability Network consortium has completed a comprehensive study published in a leading scientific journal, revealing the intricate dynamics of herbivory – the eating of plants by animals – across different plant populations. This extensive study, spanning 790 sites over five continents, investigated the variability of herbivory within populations of 503 plant species. The findings have provided new insights into how different factors, such as plant size, geographic latitude, and evolutionary relationships among species, influence the variability in herbivore damage.
The researchers found that smaller plants show higher variability in herbivory, which decreases with the plant’s size. Interestingly, plants at lower latitudes exhibited less variation in herbivory between individual plants than those at higher latitudes. Additionally, the study uncovered a phylogenetic pattern, indicating that closely related species show similar levels of herbivory variability. This suggests that evolutionary history plays a significant role in determining how herbivores affect plants.
These findings are pivotal in understanding plant-herbivore interactions’ ecological and evolutionary dynamics. They challenge the traditional focus on average levels of herbivore damage and highlight the importance of considering the variability in these interactions. Such variability can have profound implications for biodiversity, ecosystem management, and the evolutionary trajectories of plant species. With its global scale and standardized methodology, the study sets a new benchmark in ecological research, emphasizing the need to explore the causes and consequences of interaction variability in different ecological contexts. This research paves the way for future studies to better understand the complex patterns of life and interactions on Earth.
The Herbivory Variability Network*†,Plant size, latitude, and phylogeny explain within-population variability in herbivory.Science382,679-683(2023).DOI:10.1126/science.adh8830
