Tolerance responses to simulated herbivory in the seagrass Cymodocea nodosa

Sanmartí, Neus; Saiz, Lara; Llagostera, Izaskun; Pérez, Marta; Romero, Javier

doi:10.3354/meps11084

Cited by 18 publications

(14 citation statements)

References 76 publications

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“…On the other hand, high leaf denudation rates did cause negative effects on plants. For example, Z. marina exhibited a compensatory growth response, which has been linked to a reduction in belowground resources (Sanmartí et al, 2014), and which was also observed in our study, with an important reduction in rhizome biomass per internode, and in sucrose content. Importantly, this reduction was attenuated at mid and high latitudes, likely as a result of higher resource availability (LRM; Wise & Abrahamson, 2007).…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 88%

“…The experimental treatments consisted of three simulated herbivory levels; control (i.e., natural low levels), moderate (i.e., removal of 40% of maximum leaf length) and high (i.e., removal of 80% of maximum leaf length), with maximum leaf length being quantified initially as the average maximum leaf length of five plants measured per plot. Herbivory simulation was performed by leaf clipping, a standard procedure for simulating herbivory from macroherbivores such as fish or birds in seagrasses (Holzer & McGlathery, 2016;Sanmartí et al, 2014;Tomas et al, 2015;Valentine et al, 2004;Vergés et al, 2008) that produces similar effects to natural grazing in seagrasses (Fourqurean et al, 2010;Holzer & McGlathery, 2016). All the seagrass shoots in the plot and 20 cm outside the plot were clipped every 2 weeks throughout the experimental period.…”

Section: Experimental Designmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Latitudinal variation in plant defence against herbivory in a marine foundation species does not follow a linear pattern: The importance of resource availability

Hernán

Ortega

Henderson

et al. 2020

Global Ecol. Biogeogr.

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Aim: Studies on latitudinal patterns in plant defence have traditionally overlooked the potential effect that resource availability may have in shaping plant defence. Likewise, latitudinal patterns of tolerance traits have rarely been studied, yet they can be a critical component of plant defence. Therefore, the aim of our study was to examine latitudinal variation in the production of tolerance and resistance traits against herbivory along a latitudinal range and a natural gradient of resource availability from upwelling conditions. Location: North America (Canada, USA, Mexico). Time period: Summer months of 2015. Major taxa used: The seagrass Zostera marina. Methods: We conducted experiments simulating macroherbivore (e.g., bird, fish) damage on the seagrass Z. marina at 10 sites across the Eastern Pacific coast (Canada-Mexico) and Quebec and analysed several traits related to resistance and tolerance strategies against herbivory. In addition, we examined the effects of potential seagrass changes in defence strategies by performing a series of feeding experiments with mesoherbivores in a subset of sites. Results: We found that eelgrass resistance defences did not follow a linear latitudinal pattern but rather followed a bell-shaped curve which correlated with bottom-up control. In sites with higher nutrient availability, plants allocated resources to tolerance strategies and had lower resistance traits. Furthermore, seagrasses did not respond linearly to increased herbivory pressure; while they tolerated moderate levels of herbivory, they underwent a significant reduction in tolerance and resistance under high herbivory levels, which also made them more susceptible to consumers in feeding experiments.

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 88%

Section: Experimental Designmentioning

confidence: 99%

Latitudinal variation in plant defence against herbivory in a marine foundation species does not follow a linear pattern: The importance of resource availability

Hernán

Ortega

Henderson

et al. 2020

Global Ecol. Biogeogr.

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“…Plants respond to herbivory using a range of strategies. While some plants are welladapted to tolerate herbivory pressure (Strauss and Agrawal, 1999), herbivory often triggers compensatory growth (Sanmartí et al, 2014;Vergés et al, 2008), or an increase in deterrent secondary metabolites (Tomas et al, 2015;Vergés et al, 2007a), thus influencing herbivore feeding choices. How each of these individual mechanisms will work together to influence the overall outcome of plant-herbivore interactions in a warming environment is an open question (Post and Pedersen, 2008).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Contrasting effects of ocean warming on different components of plant-herbivore interactions

Pagès

Smith

Tomàs

et al. 2018

Marine Pollution Bulletin

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There is increasing uncertainty of how marine ecosystems will respond to rising temperatures. While studies have focused on the impacts of warming on individual species, knowledge of how species interactions are likely to respond is scant. The strength of even simple two-species interactions is influenced by several interacting mechanisms, each potentially changing with temperature. We used controlled experiments to assess how plant-herbivore interactions respond to temperature for three structural dominant macrophytes in the Mediterranean and their principal sea urchin herbivore. Increasing temperature differentially influenced plant-specific growth, sea urchin growth and metabolism, consumption rates and herbivore preferences, but not movement behaviour. Evaluating these empirical observations against conceptual models of plant-herbivore performance, it appears likely that while the strength of herbivory may increase for the tested macroalga, for the two dominant seagrasses, the interaction strength may remain relatively unchanged or even weaken as temperatures rise. These results show a clear set of winners and losers in the warming Mediterranean as the complex factors driving species interactions change.

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“…Several factors conspire to enable this. For one, C. nodosa has a high tolerance to grazing, compensating with overgrowth, and reallocation of nutrients and carbohydrates (Sanmartí et al, 2014). For another, P. lividus individuals, quite like urchins inhabiting rocky reefs, show strong fidelity to refuge sites (Johnson et al, 2005) and typically have small home ranges (e.g., Hereu, 2005).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%