Variability in plant-herbivore interactions across the globe and the plant kingdom: Data from the HerbVar network

WHITEHEAD, S.R.; QUINTERO, C.; SASAL, Y.; THE HERBIVORY VARIABILITY NETWORK

CABA

Congreso; VII ALAEQ; 2023

Latin American Association of Chemical Ecology

Theory predicts that variation in the intensity of plant-herbivore interactions plays a fundamental role in shaping the ecology and evolution of biodiversity and ecosystem processes. However, we have only a limited understanding of what determines the magnitude of this variation at macroecological and macroevolutionary scales. The HerbVar network is a global team of more than 200 biologists working to describe and understand how and why patterns in plant-herbivore interactions vary across the tree of life and around the world. We have conducted standardized surveys of 790 populations of 503 plant species (135 families) across 116° of latitude. We found that variation in herbivory among plants within populations increased by 40% as one moved from the equator to 70° N/S. It also varied nearly two-fold among biomes and decreased by 33% with a 2 m increase in plant size. Variation exhibited a strong phylogenetic signal – a signal that was stronger than the one for mean herbivory. Our findings demonstrate that – contrary to conventional wisdom – differences in the magnitude of interaction variability are not random. Rather, they are a key ecological, evolutionary, and biogeographic feature predictably linked to broad macroscale factors.