White-tailed deer florivory influences the population demography of Polemonium vanbruntiae

Trade-offs between deer herbivory and nitrogen competition alter grassland forb composition

“…When fencing has excluded small granivorous mammals in a desert plant community, grass abundance dramatically increased (Brown and Heske 1990 ; Brown 1998 ). While our data and observations and several examples in the literature suggest that deer florivory can structure forb abundances (Augustine and Frelich 1998 ; Geddes and Mopper 2006 ; Anderson et al 2007 ; Sakata and Yamasaki 2015 ; Flaherty et al 2018 ; Palagi and Ashley 2019 ; Nakahama et al 2020 ), it is possible that other forms of herbivory explain the species' responses to the fencing treatment. It has also been suggested that some plant species that are susceptible to herbivory may display compensatory growth that could make them more abundant in the presence of herbivores (Augustine and McNaughton 1998 ).…”

“…The responses of common grassland forbs to the experimental treatment suggests interspecific trade-offs between competitive ability for soil N and susceptibility to deer consumption. If deer are florivores of some grassland forbs, then the flowers so removed may be a small proportion of the total biomass of these plots, but, in the long term, could have decreased the abundances of species subject to florivory by decreasing recruitment (Anderson et al 2001 ; Côté et al 2004 ; Flaherty et al 2018 ).…”

“…The increased abundance of white-tailed deer in the twentieth century has been associated with reductions of forb abundance in the understory of northern forests of North America (Côté et al 2004 ; Wiegmann and Waller 2006 ). White-tailed deer have also been shown to consume flowers of Polemonium vanbruntiae in bogs (Flaherty et al 2018 ), to consume flowers of Iris hexagona in a salt marsh (Geddes and Mopper 2006 ) , and to reduce the abundance of Trillium in forest understory (Augustine and Frelich 1998 ). A comparison of islands with and without deer found that the forb Clintonia borealis had fewer genets per ramet when deer were present (Palagi and Ashley 2019 ).…”

“…Further quantification of florivory that we report provides insight into how and why deer impact grassland plant competition and species abundances. Although white-tailed deer florivory on herbaceous species has been reported (Augustine and Frelich 1998 ; Anderson et al 2001 , 2007 ; Geddes and Mopper 2006 ; Flaherty et al 2018 ; Palagi and Ashley 2019 ), there is less information on how florivory may interact with resource competition in structuring herbaceous plant communities. Here we explore the possibility that florivory may be an important component of interspecific trade-offs related to competition, growth and defense against herbivores (Coley et al 1985 ; Holt et al 1994 ; Viola et al 2010 ; Lind et al 2013 ).…”

Nonadditive effects of two contrasting introduced herbivores on the reproduction of a pollination‐specialized palm

“…In the PF population, around 80%–90% of the palms ( n = 212) had no inflorescences at the end of the springs of 2019 and 2020 (Muñoz‐Gallego et al, 2022 ). Consequently, a significant long‐term impact on the palm demography could arise (Flaherty et al, 2018 ). Finally, the negative relationship between inflorescence production and leaf damage could be explained by a reallocation of resources to defense mechanisms (Lucas‐Barbosa, 2016 ), or simply because of resource use (i.e., goats prefer to feed on inflorescences but they shift to feed on leaves when the former become scarce).…”