EFFECTS OF PLANT SPINESCENCE ON LARGE MAMMALIAN HERBIVORES
EFFECTS OF PLANT SPINESCENCE ON LARGE MAMMALIAN HERBIVORES
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DOI：
10.1007/bf01036753
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发表时间：
1986-01-01
期刊：
影响因子：
2.7
通讯作者：
OWENSMITH, N
中科院分区：
文献类型：
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作者：
COOPER, SM;OWENSMITH, N
植物的刺和刺对三种食性有蹄类动物（羚羊、黑斑羚和山羊）的摄食行为有以下影响：(1)咬的大小受到限制，大多数情况下为单叶或叶簇；（ii）钩状刺减慢咬人速度；（iii）与其他可接受的植物物种相比，那些叶片小且有刺的植物物种的可接受性更低，至少对于kudus来说是如此；(4)皮刺对小黑斑羚和山羊取食的抑制作用明显小于大黑斑羚；(v)对于某些钩刺物种，尽管它们有刺，但野葛会咬掉它们的茎端；（vi）对于某些直刺物种，kudus通过延长每次进食时间来部分补偿进食速度慢。大多数有刺的物种对有蹄类动物的可接受性与非武装的美味物种相似，尽管它们的叶片中粗蛋白质含量高于后者。这样的结构特征进一步减少了大型有蹄类食草动物每次遇到植物时所造成的组织损失，从而限制了动物的进食速度。通过这种方式，刺的作用限制了大型食草动物的叶子损失，否则可能会发生这种情况。
Plant thorns and spines had these effects on the feeding behaviour of the three spcies of browsing ungulate that we studied, kudu, impala and domestic goats: (i) bite sizes were restricted, in most cases to single leaves or leaf clusters; (ii) hooked thorns retarded biting rates; (iii) the acceptability of those plant species offering small leaf size in conjunction with prickles was lower, at least for the kudus, than those of other palatable plant species; (iv) the inhibitory effect of prickles on feeding was much less for the smaller impalas and goats than for the larger kudus; (v) from certain hook-thorned species the kudus bit off shoot ends despite their prickles; (vi) for certain straight-thorned species the kudus compensated partially of the slow eating rates obtained by extending their feeding durations per encounter. Most spinescent species were similar in their acceptability to the ungulates to unarmed palatable species, despite higher crude protein contents in their foliage than the latter. Such structural features furthermore reduce the tissue losses incurred by plants per encounter by a large ungulate herbivore, by restricting the eating rates that the animals obtain. In this way prickles function to restrict foliage losses to large herbivores below the levels that might otherwise occur.