What’s for Dinner: Plant Traits that affect Herbivore Food Choices

Session III, Virtual Room 1: BIO: From Dendrites to Dinner

Plant-herbivore interactions can control the structure of ecosystems and also affect plant nutritional quality and chemical composition. The chemical defenses that plants employ to deter grazers and fight infections are often a source of pharmaceuticals and pesticides. Understanding how grazers select which plants, or parts of plants, to utilize as food sources and which plants they avoid not only strengthens our knowledge of ecology but it also provides crucial data for agriculture and medicine. My research has focused on plant-herbivore interactions in contexts ranging from aquatic plant invasions to seagrass conservation. I have a well-established program exploring the ability of herbivores to control invasive aquatic plants. My undergraduate research assistants and I have used both lab experiments and field studies to explore the role of phenolic compounds in controlling herbivory on invasive vs. native aquatic plants. More recently, I have begun a project exploring the interactions between seagrass wasting disease and herbivory. Some seagrasses increase phenolic production in response to wasting disease, but that typically occurs in healthy tissues adjacent to disease lesions. Infected locations on seagrass leaves may have both lower chemical deterrent and lower nutrient levels than non-diseased tissues. I am just beginning to explore how wasting disease and the associated changes in plant chemistry may affect herbivore food choices. Likewise, my research also investigates how disease and herbivory alter plant chemical defense production and nutritional quality.