Abstract Under the background of global climate change, climate warming has led to an increase in insect herbivory, which significantly affects the growth, survival, and regeneration of forest plants in the warm temperate zone of China. Plants can adopt defense responses to adapt to insect defoliation. Therefore, field experiments were conducted on five common warm temperate species, Quercus acutissima , Quercus serrata , Quercus aliena , Quercus dentata , and Robinia pseudoacacia . We measured the leaf traits of healthy trees and insect defoliated trees, to explore the response strategies of common species in warm temperate zones to insect defoliation. Our results showed that native species stored more carbon in extreme environments for survival rather than growth, while the alien species R. pseudoacacia tended to adopt active resource acquisition strategies and were more inclined towards growth. The content of tannins and flavonoids in the alien species R. pseudoacacia did not significantly increase after leaf damage, while the content of secondary metabolites such as tannins, flavonoids, and total phenols in the native species Q. acutissima , Q. serrata , Q. aliena , Q. dentata increased significantly after leaf damage. This indicated that compared to alien species, native species invested more resources in defense, which might reduce resource allocation for growth. Thus, the native Quercus species have stronger resistance than the alien species R. pseudoacacia after insect defoliation.

Ning Wang

Qiang Li

Pan Wu

Shijie Yi

Hongliang Ji

Xiao Liu

Tongli He

BMC Ecology and Evolution

Bmc Ecology and Evolution

Response strategies of five common warm temperate plant species to insect defoliation

五种常见暖温带植物对虫害食叶的响应策略

Category	Quartile
环境科学与生态学	2
环境科学与生态学, 生态学	3
环境科学与生态学, 进化生物学	3
环境科学与生态学, 遗传学	3

Response strategies of five common warm temperate plant species to insect defoliation

ivySCI AI Smartly Parses PDF, Answers Researchers' Questions, and Helps You Understand Papers in Seconds

Journal Info

Category	Quartile
GENETICS & HEREDITY	3