Insect herbivory in alpine grasslands is constrained by community and host traits

摘要

QuestionThe consumption of plant biomass by herbivores is an important biotic interaction with possible cascading effects from the level of individual plant performance up to ecosystem functions. However, little is known about the degree and patterns of insect herbivory in alpine ecosystems. We searched for altitudinal differences in herbivory and tested for effects of traits of both the host plants and the surrounding plant communities on herbivory incidence to evaluate predictions derived from the resource availability and the resource concentration hypothesis.