How plants may benefit from the animals that eat them [plant consumer interactions, aphids, honeydew, melezitose, nitrogen fixation, raining trees, Ptyelus, release of water, loss of leaves, effect of consumer on plant shape and structure, grass and grazers]
1980
Owen, D.F. (Oxford Polytechnic, Headington (UK). Dept. of Biology)
It is suggested that the mutually beneficial relationships between flowers and their pollinators and between fruits and fruit-eaters can be extended to cover a much wider range of plant-consumer interactions. The ability to photosynthesize is by itself of limited value to a plant if growth and reproduction are restricted by the availability of nutrients. Hence natural selection sould favour adaptations that increase the rate of supply of a scarce resource. By enlisting the "help" of a consumer a plant may facilitate cycling and increase the supply of a nutrient in short supply; in particular the deposition of sugary honeydew by aphids may increase the rate of nitrogen fixation beneath the plant by providing an energy source for free-living nitrogen-fixing bacteria. Consumers may also affect the growth form of a plant in a beneficial way; grasses, for example, survive best when cropped and are probably totally co-evolved with grazers: one would not be possible without the other. A speculative paper such as this almost certainly contains errors of interpretation, but even if only some of the suggestions are correct the common viewpoint that plants defend themselves against consumers will have to be radically changed.
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