Abstract: Publisher Summary This chapter discusses chemical defense against herbivores. In a brief review such as this it would be impossible to discuss how stems are chemically defended against all of the herbivores. Thus, the authors have focused on mammals and aggressive bark beetles, because these two groups span the range of herbivore specialization. Moreover, mammals and bark beetles are particularly severe threats to stems, and therefore the chemical defense against them has been well studied in comparison to the chemical defense against other stem-eating herbivores. Understanding chemically mediated interactions between browsing mammals and woody stems requires knowledge of causes of variation in stem chemical defense. At least three factors have influenced the evolution of stem chemical defense viz. adaptation to resource (mineral nutrients, light, and water) limitation, the plant's stage of ontogenetic development, and historical risk of herbivory. The three sections briefly discuss each factor. The challenge of understanding how woody stems are defended chemically against specialist herbivores, such as bark beetles, lies in understanding how constitutive chemical defenses and inducible chemical defenses of an individual plant interact to prevent successful colonization by the beetle and pathogens it vectors. The most important similarity in chemical defense against mammals and bark beetles is the impact that carbon stress has on the effectiveness of chemical defense. In both the cases of the constitutive defenses employed against mammals and the inducible defenses used against bark beetles, carbon stress reduces defense.
Publication Year: 1995
Publication Date: 1995-01-01
Language: en
Type: book-chapter
Indexed In: ['crossref']
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Cited By Count: 12
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