Every bite an herbivore takes comes at the expense of a plant. Are plants passive victims or do they actively resist these attacks? Some plants avoid herbivory by decreasing their apparency or ‘hiding ...

Factors shaping the interspecific variations in herbivory have puzzled ecologists for decades and several hypotheses have been proposed. However, we still lack a clear evaluation on the direction and ...

They found that phytochemical diversity was higher within tropical tree communities compared to subtropical and subalpine communities. Along with increased alpha and beta phytochemical diversity in ...

A first-of-its-kind study used herbarium specimens to track insect herbivory across more than a century, and found that, across four species -- shagbark hickory (Carya ovata), swamp white oak (Quercus ...

It is widely accepted that biological interactions are stronger or more important in generating and maintaining biodiversity in the tropics than in temperate regions. However, this hypothesis has not ...

Plants and the animals that eat them comprise more than 90 per cent of the Earth’s biomass. Most of the biodiversity we see around us is shaped by this critical interaction between plants and ...

Panicum virgatum L., commonly known as switchgrass, is a perennial bunch grass that is receiving attention as a potential candidate for biofuel production from its biomass (via conversion of cellulose ...

Researchers led by Prof. Liu Xiaojuan from the Institute of Botany of the Chinese Academy of Sciences have analyzed data from 8,800 trees across 80 species in nine biodiversity experiments from the ...