The effects of plant defensive chemistry on nutrient availability predict reproductive success in a mammal
The effects of plant defensive chemistry on nutrient availability predict reproductive success in a mammal
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DOI：
10.1890/08-0940.1
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发表时间：
2009-03-01
期刊：
影响因子：
4.8
通讯作者：
Johnson, Christopher N.
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Degabriel, Jane L.;Moore, Ben D.;Johnson, Christopher N.
植物含有各种化学防御，强烈影响圈养哺乳动物的摄食率，但它们对哺乳动物的影响。野生食草动物的适应性在很大程度上未知。这是因为防御化合物的复杂性，以及食草动物对它们的反适应性，使得它们在野外的影响难以衡量。我们展示了单宁如何与蛋白质相互作用，以产生空间变异的营养质量的eucalut树叶，这是有关的人口在野生人口的有袋类食叶动物，常见的刷尾负鼠（Trichosurus vulpecula克尔）。单宁降低了氮（N）的体外消化率，在其他均匀的栖息地中，单个负鼠的家域之间产生了有效氮浓度的变化。这与繁殖成功密切相关：在其家庭范围内拥有更好质量树木的雌性繁殖更频繁，后代生长更快。这些结果表明一个强大的机制，植物化学的空间变化可能会控制草食动物种群动态的性质。
Plants contain a variety of chemical defenses that strongly affect feeding rates in captive mammals, but their effects on the. fitness of wild herbivores are largely unknown. This is because the complexity of defensive compounds, and herbivores' counteradaptations to them, make their effects in the wild difficult to measure. We show how tannins interact with protein to produce spatial variation in the nutritional quality of eucalypt foliage, which is related to demography in a wild population of a marsupial folivore, the common brushtail possum (Trichosurus vulpecula Kerr). Tannins reduced the digestibility of nitrogen (N) in vitro, creating variation in available N concentrations among the home ranges of individual possums in an otherwise homogeneous habitat. This was strongly correlated with reproductive success: females with better quality trees in their home range reproduced more often and had faster-growing offspring. These results demonstrate a powerful mechanism by which spatial variation in plant chemistry may control herbivore population dynamics in nature.