Université de Fribourg

Community‐level plant palatability increases with elevation as insect herbivore abundance declines

Descombes, Patrice ; Marchon, Jérémy ; Pradervand, Jean-Nicolas ; Bilat, Julia ; Guisan, Antoine ; Rasmann, Sergio ; Pellissier, Loïc

In: Journal of Ecology, 2017, vol. 105, no. 1, p. 142–151

Plants protect themselves against herbivore attacks through a myriad of physical structures and toxic secondary metabolites. Together with abiotic factors, herbivores are expected to modulate plant defence strategies within plant assemblages. Because the abundance of insect herbivore decreases in colder environments, the palatability of plants in communities at higher elevation should shift...

Université de Fribourg

Nurse plants, tree saplings and grazing pressure: changes in facilitation along a biotic environmental gradient

Smit, Christian ; Vandenberghe, Charlotte ; Ouden, Jan den ; Müller-Schärer, Heinz

In: Oecologia, 2007, vol. 152, no. 2, p. 265-273

Current conceptual models predict that an increase in stress shifts interactions between plants from competitive to facilitative; hence, facilitation is expected to gain in ecological importance with increasing stress. Little is known about how facilitative interactions between plants change with increasing biotic stress, such as that incurred by consumer pressure or herbivory (i.e....