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Science 22 November 1985:
Vol. 230. no. 4728, pp. 895 - 899
DOI: 10.1126/science.230.4728.895
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Articles

Resource Availability and Plant Antiherbivore Defense

Phyllis D. Coley 1, John P. Bryant 2, and F. Stuart Chapin III 2

1 Department of Biology, University of Utah, Salt Lake City 84112.
2 Institute of Arctic Biology, University of Alaska, Fairbanks 99701.

The degree of herbivory and the effectiveness of defense varies widely among plant species. Resource availability in the environment is proposed as the major determinant of both the amount and type of plant defense. When resource are limited, plants with inherently slow growth are favored over those with fast growth rates; slow rates in turn favor large investments in antiherbivore defenses. Leaf lifetime, also determined by resource availability, affects the relative advantages of defenses with different turnover rates. Relative limitation of different resources also constrains the types of defenses. The proposals are compared with other theories on the evolution of plant defenses.


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