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Journal ArticleDOI

The dilemma of plants: To grow or defend.

Daniel A. Herms, +1 more
- 01 Jan 1992 - 
- Vol. 67, Iss: 3, pp 283-335
TLDR
A conceptual model of the evolution of plant defense is concluded, in which plant physioligical trade-offs interact with the abiotic environment, competition and herbivory.
Abstract
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 theories are unified within the growth-differentiation balance (GDB) framework, forming an integrated system of theories explaining and predicting patterns of plant defense and competitive interactions in ecological and evolutionary time. Plant activity at the cellular level can be classified as growth (cell division and enlargement) of differentiation (chemical and morphological changes leading to cell maturation and specialization). The GDB hypothesis of plant defense is premised upon a physiological trade-off between growth and differentiation processes. The trade-off between growth and defense exists because secondary metabolism and structural reinforcement are physiologically constrained in dividing and enlarging cells, and because they divert resources from the production of new leaf area. Hence the dilemma of plants: Th...

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Citations
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Journal ArticleDOI

Mechanisms of plant survival and mortality during drought: why do some plants survive while others succumb to drought?

TL;DR: A hydraulically based theory considering carbon balance and insect resistance that allowed development and examination of hypotheses regarding survival and mortality was developed, and incorporating this hydraulic framework may be effective for modeling plant survival andortality under future climate conditions.
Book

Principles of Terrestrial Ecosystem Ecology

TL;DR: In this paper, the Ecosystem Concept is used to describe the Earth's Climate System and Geology and Soils, and the ecosystem concept is used for managing and sustaining ecosystems.
Journal ArticleDOI

Plant Ecological Strategies: Some Leading Dimensions of Variation Between Species

TL;DR: The leaf mass per area–leaf lifespan (LMA-LL) dimension expresses slow turnover of plant parts, long nutrient residence times, and slow response to favorable growth conditions.
Journal ArticleDOI

Plant Immunity to Insect Herbivores

TL;DR: A detailed understanding of plant immunity to arthropod herbivores will provide new insights into basic mechanisms of chemical communication and plant-animal coevolution and may also facilitate new approaches to crop protection and improvement.
Journal ArticleDOI

On underestimation of global vulnerability to tree mortality and forest die‐off from hotter drought in the Anthropocene

TL;DR: In this article, the authors identify ten contrasting perspectives that shape the vulnerability debate but have not been discussed collectively and present a set of global vulnerability drivers that are known with high confidence: (1) droughts eventually occur everywhere; (2) warming produces hotter Droughts; (3) atmospheric moisture demand increases nonlinearly with temperature during drought; (4) mortality can occur faster in hotter Drought, consistent with fundamental physiology; (5) shorter Drought can become lethal under warming, increasing the frequency of lethal Drought; and (6) mortality happens rapidly
References
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Book

Plant Strategies and Vegetation Processes

TL;DR: In this paper, the authors present plant strategies in the established phase and the regenerative phase in the emerging phase, respectively, and discuss the relationship between the two phases: primary strategies and secondary strategies.
Journal ArticleDOI

Evidence for the existence of three primary strategies in plants and its relevance to ecological and evolutionary theory

TL;DR: A triangular model based upon the three strategies of evolution in plants may be reconciled with the theory of r- and K-selection, provides an insight into the processes of vegetation succession and dominance, and appears to be capable of extension to fungi and to animals.
Journal ArticleDOI

The Mineral Nutrition of Wild Plants

TL;DR: The nature of crop responses to nutrient stress is reviewed and compares these responses to those of species that have evolved under more natural conditions, particularly in low-nutrient envi­ ronments.
Journal ArticleDOI

Butterflies and plants: a study in coevolution

TL;DR: The relationship between butterflies and their food plants is investigated, the examination of patterns of interaction between two major groups of organisms with a close and evident ecological relationship, such as plants and herbivores.
Journal ArticleDOI

Resource Availability and Plant Antiherbivore Defense

TL;DR: Resource availability in the environment is proposed as the major determinant of both the amount and type of plant defense, and theories on the evolution of plant defenses are compared with other theories.