RUI: Testing the Limiting Resource Model of Plant Tolerance of Herbivory

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Explaining and predicting the impact that herbivores have on their host plants is a major goal of ecologists, evolutionary biologists, and agronomists. The environmental conditions in which a plant grows clearly affect how it tolerates damage by herbivores, but current models predicting the direction of this environmental effect fall short of explaining the diversity of empirical results now available. This research will develop and test a new model (the Limiting Resource Model) that explicitly considers which resources different types of herbivores affect and which resources are limiting a plant's fitness. The research involves greenhouse experiments using Solidago altissima (tall goldenrod) and three species of insects under varying light and inorganic nutrient levels. This research will not only help build upon the thirty-plus years of research on the goldenrod-natural enemy model system, but it will advance understanding of the ecological impacts of herbivory in nature and will inform general theories of plant-defense evolution. Knowledge about the factors that affect tolerance can be applied to crop plants to enhance their tolerance of herbivore damage, thus reducing the need for pesticides. Likewise the knowledge of conditions that decrease plants' tolerance of herbivory can be used against invasive weeds by informing the design of biological control programs.