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 …

Our understanding of plant mineral nutrition comes largely from studies of herbaceous crops
that evolved from ruderal species characteristic of nutrient-rich disturbed sites (52). With the …

The degree of herbivory and the effectiveness of defenses varies widely among plant
species. Resource availability in the environment is proposed as the major determinant of …

Publisher Summary This chapter discusses the physiological causes and ecological
consequences of inherent variation in growth rate among higher plants. When grown under …

In landscapes subject to intensive agriculture, both soil fertility and vegetation disturbance
are capable of impacting strongly, evenly and simultaneously on the herbaceous plant cover …

An approach based on competition among individual plants is presented as an explanation
for species replacements during plant succession. Inverse correlations among life history …

As one of the most quantitative of ecological subdisciplines, resource competition is an
important, central area of ecology. Recently research into this area has increased …

(1) Variation in standing crop and in litter has been measured by seasonal sampling and
sorting of the herbaceous vegetation at thirteen sites in the Sheffield region. The vegetation …

In both evolutionary biology and in ecology much effort has been devoted to the search for
generalizing principles. One approach has been to seek to develop a universal functional …

1. Under nutrient-poor conditions initially fast-growing species will in the long term be
competitively inferior to slow-growing species. Here, we ask whether this phenomenon can …