Diverse traits of aquatic plants cannot individually explain their consumption by the generalist gastropod Biomphalairia glabrata

PeerJ

article

Renato Crespo Pereira¹  Nathália Nocchi³  Tatiana U.P. Konno⁵  Angelica R. Soares⁴ 

[1] Universidade Federal Fluminense, Departamento de Biologia Marinha;Instituto de Pesquisas Jardim Botânico do Rio de Janeiro;Instituto Universitario de Bio-Orgánica Antonio González, Departamento de Química Orgánica, Universidad de La Laguna;Grupo de Produtos Naturais de Organismos Aquáticos, Instituto de Biodiversidade e Sustentabilidade ,(NUPEM), Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro;Instituto de Biodiversidade e Sustentabilidade ,(NUPEM)/Grupo de Produtos Naturais de Organismos Aquáticos, Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro

关键词: Herbivory;    Aquatic biology;    Macrophytes;    Chemical defense;    Physical defense;    Structural defense;    Secondary metabolites;    Plant life-form;    Plant defense;    Susceptibility to herbivory;   

DOI  :  10.7717/peerj.12031

学科分类：社会科学、人文和艺术（综合）

来源: Inra

【 摘 要 】

Several experimental studies on aquatic plants have reported the prevalence of chemical defense mechanism against herbivory, as opposed to structural, life-forms or other traits. Here, our laboratory feeding experiments and integrative analysis explored the relationship among palatability (fresh or reconstituted plants used as artificial diet) and various chemical/nutritional traits (i.e., contents of dry mass, ash, nitrogen, protein, and phenols) of diverse aquatic plants and their susceptibility to consumption by the generalist gastropod Biomphalaria glabrata. Biomphalaria glabrata consumed all of the assayed aquatic plants in a hierarchical yet generalized way, with the consumption of fresh plants, their reconstituted forms and defensive properties of lipophilic extracts not being significantly correlated with plant physical or chemical traits to determine the feeding preference of the gastropod. Our results do not reveal a prevalence for a specific plant attribute contributing to herbivory. Instead, they indicate that the susceptibility of aquatic plants to generalist consumers is probably related to a combination of their chemical and physical properties, resulting in moderate grazing rates by generalist consumers.

【 授权许可】

CC BY