Ecological stoichiometry of plant-herbivore interactions

• James J. Elser
• William F. Fagan

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Abstract

We propose a working group to investigate how the ecological stoichiometry of plant-herbivore interactions influences community dynamics in terrestrial and aquatic habitats. The relative availability of the elements carbon [C], nitrogen [N], and phosphorous [P] in autotrophic resource species in comparison with the relative demand for those elements in the body tissues of consumer species is believed to underlie major aspects of community organization in pelagic systems. Similar stoichiometric perspectives are rarely applied in studies of terrestrial plant-herbivore systems, even though suitable data exist on which to base preliminary syntheses. We seek to investigate how the stoichiometry of primary producers and herbivores compares between aquatic and terrestrial systems and how differences between habitats scale as functions of consumer body size, phylogeny, and specific growth rate. These analyses will provide insight into the ways in which organisms? elemental stoichiometry influences plant-herbivore dynamics and food web structure and function. Spatial modeling of stoichiometric plant-herbivore dynamics should yield novel insights into issues of species coexistence and spatial patterning. Over all this research will offer a new, synthetic perspective on the ways food web structure and dynamics link population and ecosystem level processes.