Tolerating herbivory: does the plant care if the herbivore has a backbone?

This is the accepted manuscript of an article published by Springer Verlag.Differences in size-related ecology and behaviour between vertebrate and invertebrate herbivores lead to differences in the rates, tissue specificity, and spatial distribution of their damage, as well as in their indirect effects. As a result, many features of tolerance to herbivory by these groups also may differ. Tolerating vertebrate herbivory may demand the ability to tolerate sporadic non-specific impacts; this may be achieved by broad responses promoting regrowth and resource acquisition. In contrast, the diversity of different types of invertebrate damage seems likely to demand a correspondingly great variety of responses. These conclusions suggest that tolerance to invertebrates may involve a broader set of responses than tolerance to vertebrates; conversely, the greater specificity of these responses may make it more difficult for arthropod-tolerant plants to achieve cross-tolerance to other types of damage.The production of this manuscript was supported by an NSERC Research Grant and the University of Toronto (PMK), and by the Fogarty International Center of the National Institutes of Health (JPR)