Plant Defences against Animals in the Amazonian Rainforest

Abstract

Plants stand still. This is as true in Amazonian rainforest as it is in boreal coniferous forest. As the architects of every medieval castle understood, if you are fixed in place, your past experiences (natural selection) lead you to develop (evolve) both intense standing defences and facultative ones. Furthermore, which defences are present at any given time reflect at least four quite different processes: how much resources you have to build and maintain, the traits of past and present attackers, and the structure of the entire edifice. when a new defence is being considered. Finally, by the possession of ever more defences, the castle is rendered ever more immobile (physically, culturally), ever more a long-term investment, and ever more vulnerable if the defences are breached. Natural selection has generated the above pattern in plants just as it has done in humans, and in the lowland tropical rainforests of the world we find the epitome of the lesson. It is here that a plant stands against its herbivores with little or no help from cold winters, harsh droughts, irregular growing seasons, low species richness of herbivores or competitors, high quality population cueing systems, and all the other little ways (besides their intrinsic personal defences) that plants may use to defend themselves against animal herbivores or that may result in lower populations of herbivores.