Physiological and ecological constraints play key roles in the evolution of plant growth
patterns, especially in relation to defenses against herbivores. Phenotypic and life history …

Walking through a garden or a crop field, you may notice that plants damaged by pests
(insects or pathogens) look smaller than the same kind of plants nearby that are not …

Trade-offs and constraints are key ideas in plant defense theory. Here I argue that trade-offs,
such as those between defense and growth, may be better understood by incorporating …

ABSTRACT Several hypotheses, mainly Optimal Defense (OD), Carbon: Nutrient Balance
(CNB), Growth Rate (GR), and Growth-Differentiation Balance (GDB), have individually …

As plants develop from seeds to seedlings, juveniles and mature stages, their ontogeny can
constrain the expression of resistance to herbivore damage. Nevertheless, ecological and …

Herbivores consume a large portion of the biomass produced by plants in virtually all
ecosystems, which has dramatic effects on both the ecology and evolution of plants. In …

In this essay I summarize current trends in the evolutionary ecology of plant defence, while
advocating for approaches that integrate community ecology with specific tests of classic …

We consider the role that key structural traits, such as spinescence, pubescence,
sclerophylly and raphides, play in protecting plants from herbivore attack. Despite the …

Two prominent theories proposed to explain patterns of chemical defense expression in
plants are the optimal defense theory (ODT) and the growth-differentiation balance …

Several prominent hypotheses have been posed to explain the immense variability among
plant species in defense against herbivores. A major concept in the evolutionary ecology of …