Spatial Heterogeneity, Not Visitation Bias, Dominates Variation in Herbivory

Experiments in ecology can have unintended side effects. Recently, it has been suggested that the act of visiting a plant, inherent to studying herbivory, may alter plant performance and interactions. To evaluate the generality of this inference, we examined plant performance and herbivory on 14 pla...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:	Ecology (Durham) Vol. 84; no. 8; pp. 2214 - 2221
Main Authors:	Bradley, Kate L., Damschen, Ellen I., Young, Lauren M., Kuefler, Daniel, Went, Sarah, Wray, Galen, Haddad, Nick M., Johannes M. H. Knops, Louda, Svata M.
Format:	Journal Article
Language:	English
Published:	Washington, DC Ecology Society of America 01-08-2003 Ecological Society of America Ecological Society of America (ESA)
Subjects:	60 APPLIED LIFE SCIENCES Animal behavior Animal, plant and microbial ecology Applied ecology Biological and medical sciences BIOMASS ECOLOGY Flowers & plants Fundamental and applied biological sciences. Psychology General aspects. Techniques Geographic regions Herbivores Herbivory herbivory uncertainty principle Human ecology Infestation Insect ecology Leaves Methods and techniques (sampling, tagging, trapping, modelling...) observer effect Phytophagous insects plant performance Plants SIDE EFFECTS spatial heterogeneity visitation effect Wetland ecology herbivory uncertainty principle Plant Phytophagous visitation effect Animal plant relation Observer herbivory observer effect Methodological bias plant performance spatial heterogeneity Damage Performance
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Summary:	Experiments in ecology can have unintended side effects. Recently, it has been suggested that the act of visiting a plant, inherent to studying herbivory, may alter plant performance and interactions. To evaluate the generality of this inference, we examined plant performance and herbivory on 14 plant species in three geographic regions. Visitation did not significantly affect any of the variables that we measured, including leaf damage, height, biomass, or survivorship, for any species. However, rates of herbivory varied significantly among sites and regions. Thus, our data do not support the generality of visitation impacting estimates of herbivory. We propose that future studies of herbivory will gain more by evaluating spatial heterogeneity in interaction outcomes than by quantifying possible experimenter-caused variation.
Bibliography:	E‐mail kbradle1@bigred.unl.edu Corresponding Editor: S. Lavorel ObjectType-Article-2 SourceType-Scholarly Journals-1 ObjectType-Feature-1 content type line 23 USDOE Office of Environmental Management (EM) AI09-00SR22188 na
ISSN:	0012-9658 1939-9170
DOI:	10.1890/02-3082