Defensive (anti-herbivory) Coloration in Land Plants [electronic resource] /
Lev-Yadun, Simcha.author.
This book presents visual plant defenses (camouflage, mimicry and aposematism via coloration, morphology and even movement) against herbivores. It is mainly an ideological monograph, a manifesto representing my current understanding on defensive plant coloration and related issues. The book is not the final word in anything, but rather the beginning of many things. It aims to establish visual anti-herbivory defense as an integral organ of botany, or plant science as it is commonly called today. I think that like in animals, many types of plant coloration can be explained by selection associated with the sensory/cognitive systems of herbivores and predators to reduce herbivory. It is intended to intrigue and stimulate students of botany/plant science and plant/animal interactions for a very long time. This book is tailored to a readership of biologists and naturalists of all kinds and levels, and more specifically for botanists, ecologists, evolutionists and to those interested in plant/animal interactions. It is written from the point of view of a naturalist, ecologist and evolutionary biologist that I hold, considering natural selection as the main although not the only drive for evolution. According to this perspective, factors such as chance, founder effects, genetic drift and various stochastic processes that may and do influence characters found in specific genotypes, are not comparable in their power and influence to the common outcomes of natural selection, especially manifested when very many species belonging to different plant families, with very different and separate evolutionary histories, arrive at the same adaptation, something that characterizes many of the visual patterns and proposed adaptations described and discussed in this book. Many of the discussed visual defensive mechanisms are aimed at operating before the plants are damaged, i.e., to be their first line of defense. In this respect, I think that the name of the book by Ruxton et al. (2004) "Avoiding Attack" is an excellent phrase for the assembly of the best types of defensive tactics. While discussing anti-herbivory, I do remember, study and teach physiological/developmental aspects of some of the discussed coloration patterns, and I am fully aware of the simultaneous and diverse functions of many plant characters in addition to defense.
Includes bibliographical references.
1. Introduction -- 2. Plants are not sitting ducks waiting for herbivores to eat them -- 3. The many defensive mechanisms of plants -- 4. No defense is perfect and defense is always relative -- 5. Operating under stress and fear in the military as a lesson concerning difficulties for herbivory in nature. Factors that lower the need for perfect defensive mechanisms including micry. - 6. Evaluating risk: the problematic and even erroneous common view of "no damage or no attack equals no risk" -- 7. Partial descriptions of color patterns in floras and handbooks has consequences on the study of plant coloration biology -- 8. Animal color vision -- 9. The nature of signals -- 10. White as a visual signal -- 11. Visual signaling by plants to animals via color -- 12. Müllerian and Batesian mimics are extended phenotypes -- 13. Camouflage -- 14. Seed camouflage -- 15. Pod and seed camouflage in the genus Pisum -- 16. Defensive functions of white coloration in coastal and dune plants -- 17. Gloger's rule in plants: the species and ecosystem levels -- 18. Defensive masquerade by plants -- 19. Potential defense from herbivory by dazzle effects and trickery coloration of variegated leaves -- 20. Plants undermine herbirorous insect camouflage -- 21. Delayed greening -- 22. Red/purple leaf margin coloration: potential defensive functions -- 23. Aposematism -- 24. Olfactory aposematism -- 25. The anecdotal history of discussing plant aposematic coloration -- 26. Aposematic coloration in thorny, spiny and prickly plants -- 27. Fearful symmetry in aposematic spiny plants -- 28. Color changes in old aposematic thorns, spines, and prickles -- 29. Pathogenic bacteria and fungi on thorns, spines and prickles -- 30. Aposematism in plants with silica needles and raphids made of calcium oxalate -- 31. Müllerian and Batesian mimicry rings of aposematic thorny, spiny and toxic plants -- 32. Batesian mimicry and automimicry of aposematic thorns, spines and prickles -- 33. Additional cases of defensive visual Batesian mimicry among plants -- 34. When may green plants be aposematic? -- 35. Spiny east Mediterranean plant species flower later and in a drier season than non-spiny species -- 36. Biochemical evidence of convergent evolution of aposematic coloration in thorny, spiny and prickly plants -- 37. Aposematic coloration in poisonous flowers, fruits and seeds -- 38. Aposematic trichomes: probably an overlooked common phenomenon -- 39. Why is latex usually white and only sometimes yellow, orange or red? Simultaneous visual and chemical plant defense -- 40. Visual defenses basically operating by various mechanisms that have an aposematic component -- 41. Plant aposematism involving fungi -- 42. Do plants use visual and olfactory carrion-based aposematism to deter herbivores? -- 43. Gall aposematism -- 44. Experimental evidence for plant aposematism -- 45. The complicated enigma of red and yellow autumn leaves -- 46. Leaf color variability -- 47. What do red and yellow autumn leaves signal for sure? -- 48. The second generation of hypotheses about colorful autumn leaves -- 49. The shared and separate roles of aposematic (warning) coloration and the co-evolution hypothesis in defending autumn leaves -- 50. Spring versus autumn or young versus old leaf colors: evidence for different selective agents and evolution in various species and floras -- 51. How red is the red autumn leaf herring and did it lose its red color? -- 52. Defensive animal and animal action mimicry by plants -- 53. Caterpillar and other herbivore feeding damage mimicry as defense -- 54. Tunneling damage mimicry -- 55. Butterfly egg mimicry -- 56. Caterpillar mimicry -- 57. Aphid mimicry -- 58. Ant mimicry -- 59. Beetle mimicry -- 60. Spider web mimicry -- 61. Defensive bee and wasp mimicry by orchid flowers -- 62. Gall midge mimicry -- 63. Arthropod wing movement mimicry -- 64. "Eye spot" mimicry -- 65. Snake mimicry -- 66. Visual and olfactory feces and carrion mimicry -- 67. Extended phenotype -- 68. A general perspective of defensive animal mimicry by plants -- 69. Currently temporary final words.
This book presents visual plant defenses (camouflage, mimicry and aposematism via coloration, morphology and even movement) against herbivores. It is mainly an ideological monograph, a manifesto representing my current understanding on defensive plant coloration and related issues. The book is not the final word in anything, but rather the beginning of many things. It aims to establish visual anti-herbivory defense as an integral organ of botany, or plant science as it is commonly called today. I think that like in animals, many types of plant coloration can be explained by selection associated with the sensory/cognitive systems of herbivores and predators to reduce herbivory. It is intended to intrigue and stimulate students of botany/plant science and plant/animal interactions for a very long time. This book is tailored to a readership of biologists and naturalists of all kinds and levels, and more specifically for botanists, ecologists, evolutionists and to those interested in plant/animal interactions. It is written from the point of view of a naturalist, ecologist and evolutionary biologist that I hold, considering natural selection as the main although not the only drive for evolution. According to this perspective, factors such as chance, founder effects, genetic drift and various stochastic processes that may and do influence characters found in specific genotypes, are not comparable in their power and influence to the common outcomes of natural selection, especially manifested when very many species belonging to different plant families, with very different and separate evolutionary histories, arrive at the same adaptation, something that characterizes many of the visual patterns and proposed adaptations described and discussed in this book. Many of the discussed visual defensive mechanisms are aimed at operating before the plants are damaged, i.e., to be their first line of defense. In this respect, I think that the name of the book by Ruxton et al. (2004) "Avoiding Attack" is an excellent phrase for the assembly of the best types of defensive tactics. While discussing anti-herbivory, I do remember, study and teach physiological/developmental aspects of some of the discussed coloration patterns, and I am fully aware of the simultaneous and diverse functions of many plant characters in addition to defense.
Plant science.
Botany.
Entomology.
Evolutionary biology.
Behavioral sciences.
Trees.
Plant Sciences.
Entomology.
Evolutionary Biology.
Behavioral Sciences.
Tree Biology.