Abstract
We discuss habitat bareness as an integrative factor in the ecology of plants in harsh edaphic environments, with a focus on the role of defense against natural enemies in these habitats. We outline hypotheses related to defense in hostile environments, and present insights from studies that test some of them by integrating phylogeny with ecological observations and experiments on species environments, climate, herbivory, and defense, using a diverse clade of Californian mustards (Streptanthus clade) as a system. In this chapter, we (1) discuss “bareness” – the amount of bare ground surrounding plants in a natural setting – as an integrator of the harshness of an environment, with emphasis in edaphic specialization; (2) briefly summarize multiple ways plants defend, resist, or avoid natural enemies; (3) review resource constraints in harsh environments and how these may relate to selection for increased defense in bare hostile environments; and (4) discuss how competition, herbivory, and other biotic interactions may differ in bare and harsh environments.
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Acknowledgments
We thank Sharon Strauss for comments and for several years of discussion and collaboration that helped shape some of the ideas outlined here, an anonymous reviewer for comments that improved this chapter, members of the Strauss and Cacho Labs for stimulating conversations on the topic, and Juan Núñez-Farfán and Pedro Valverde for inviting us to contribute to this volume.
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Cacho, N.I., McIntyre, P.J. (2020). The Role of Enemies in Bare and Edaphically Challenging Environments. In: Núñez-Farfán, J., Valverde, P. (eds) Evolutionary Ecology of Plant-Herbivore Interaction. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-46012-9_13
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