Summary: Ecology, 87(7) Supplement, 2006, pp. S132­S149
Ó 2006 by the Ecological Society of America
PLANT DEFENSE SYNDROMES
ANURAG A. AGRAWAL
1,3
AND MARK FISHBEIN
2,4
1
Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology and Department of Entomology, Cornell University, Ithaca, New York 14853 USA
2
Department of Biological Sciences, Mississippi State University, Mississippi State, Mississippi 39762 USA
Abstract. Given that a plant's defensive strategy against herbivory is never likely to be a
single trait, we develop the concept of plant defense syndromes, where association with specific
ecological interactions can result in convergence on suites of covarying defensive traits.
Defense syndromes can be studied within communities of diverse plant species as well as
within clades of closely related species. In either case, theory predicts that plant defense traits
can consistently covary across species, due to shared evolutionary ancestry or due to adaptive
convergence.
We examined potential defense syndromes in 24 species of milkweeds (Asclepias spp.) in a
field experiment. Employing phylogenetically independent contrasts, we found few correla-

Source: Agrawal, Anurag - Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology & Entomollogy, Cornell University

Collections: Environmental Sciences and Ecology