Herbivory, intraspecific trait variability and back to herbivory

A study of six grass and four woody legume species found that long-term ungulate herbivory leads to divergent evolutionary and plastic responses based on plant life form: grasses shifted toward acquisitive leaf traits primarily through plasticity, while woody legumes developed more conservative leaves, longer spines, and smaller leaves through hereditary changes.

• In grass species, decades of field herbivory resulted in a shift toward more acquisitive leaf trait syndromes, a change that was largely attributed to plasticity rather than heredity.
• In woody legume species, herbivory led to the development of more conservative leaves, smaller leaves, and longer spines, with these differences being primarily hereditary.
• The study concludes that vertebrate herbivory can drive evolutionary processes on contemporary timescales in long-lived perennial plants, though the direction of change varies by life form, potentially due to differing strategies of tolerance versus resistance.

APA

Inter-American Institute for Global Change Research (2025). Herbivory, intraspecific trait variability and back to herbivory. https://iai.int/es/pub_acad/herbivory-intraspecific-trait-variability-and-back-to-herbivory/

Chicago

Inter-American Institute for Global Change Research. Herbivory, intraspecific trait variability and back to herbivory. 2025. https://iai.int/es/pub_acad/herbivory-intraspecific-trait-variability-and-back-to-herbivory/.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |author=Inter-American Institute for Global Change Research |title=Herbivory, intraspecific trait variability and back to herbivory |date=5 January 2025 |url=https://iai.int/es/pub_acad/herbivory-intraspecific-trait-variability-and-back-to-herbivory/ |access-date=17 August 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{interamericaninstituteforglobalchangeresearch2025herbivory, author = {{Inter-American Institute for Global Change Research}}, title = {{Herbivory, intraspecific trait variability and back to herbivory}}, institution = {Inter-American Institute for Global Change Research}, year = {2025}, month = jan, url = {https://iai.int/es/pub_acad/herbivory-intraspecific-trait-variability-and-back-to-herbivory/}, urldate = {2026-08-17}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }