INVESTIGADORES
DALEO Pedro
artículos
Título:
Grazer facilitation of fungal infection and the control of plant growth in south-western Atlantic salt marshes
Autor/es:
DALEO, P.; SILLIMAN, B.; ALBERTI, J.; ESCAPA, M; CANEPUCCIA, A.D.; PEÑA, N.; IRIBARNE, O.
Revista:
JOURNAL OF ECOLOGY (PRINT)
Referencias:
Año: 2009 vol. 97 p. 781 - 787
ISSN:
0022-0477
Resumen:
1. While great effort has been made in documenting the processes that drive plant-induced susceptibility after herbivore attack and it is widely accepted that herbivores can facilitate plant diseases, the relative importance of this interaction in controlling plant growth in
natural systems remains largely unexplored.
2. In south-western Atlantic salt marshes, we investigated the importance of disease after
herbivory by examining: (1) whether or not a herbivorous crab facilitates disease (i.e.
fungus infection) in marsh plants (Spartina alterniflora and S. densiflora) when clipping
off small portions of leaves and (2) the separate and interactive effects of crab grazing but
fungal infection in controlling marsh plant growth.
3. Our results show that crab grazing facilitates fungal infection in Spartina leaves. A
factorial field experiment shows that both direct crab herbivory and fungal infection
strongly suppress plant production (by more than 50%).
4. Synthesis. These experimental results demonstrate that fungal infection following
herbivory attack can decrease salt marsh plant production and that increased disease
susceptibility can be a fundamental factor in controlling plant production in natural
ecosystems, even in cases where herbivores do not directly inoculate the pathogen but only
damage plant tissue.