Journal
ECOLOGY
Volume 97, Issue 4, Pages 826-833Publisher
WILEY
DOI: 10.1890/15-1696.1
Keywords
Abronia latifolia; external defenses; Navarretia mellita; physical defenses; plant apparency; plant defense; psammophory; sand armor
Categories
Funding
- NSF-GRFP
- Davis Botanical Society
- Jastro-Shields fund
- Center for Population Biology
- Direct For Biological Sciences
- Division Of Environmental Biology [1456225] Funding Source: National Science Foundation
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Sand entrapment on plant surfaces, termed psammophory or sand armor, is a phylogenetically and geographically widespread trait. The functional significance of this phenomenon has been poorly investigated. Sand and soil are nonnutritive and difficult for herbivores to process, as well as visually identical to the background. We experimentally investigated whether this sand coating physically protected the plant from herbivores or increased crypsis (e.g., decreased apparency to herbivores). We tested the former hypothesis by removing entrapped sand from stems, petioles, and leaves of the sand verbena Abronia latifolia and by supplementing natural sand levels in the honeyscented pincushion plant Navarretia mellita. Consistent with a physical defensive function, leaves with sand present or supplemented suffered less chewing herbivory than those with sand removed or left as is. To test a possible crypsis effect, we coated some sand verbena stems with green sand, matching the stem color, as well as others with brown sand to match the background color. Both suffered less chewing herbivory than controls with no sand and herbivory did not significantly differ between the colors, suggesting crypsis was not the driving resistance mechanism. Strong tests of plant apparency are rare; this experimental approach may be possible in other systems and represents one of few manipulative tests of this long-standing hypothesis.
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