Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface to the second edition
- Preface to the first edition
- Acknowledgments
- 1 Wetlands: an overview
- 2 Flooding
- 3 Fertility
- 4 Disturbance
- 5 Competition
- 6 Herbivory
- 7 Burial
- 8 Other factors
- 9 Diversity
- 10 Zonation: shorelines as a prism
- 11 Services and functions
- 12 Research: paths forward
- 13 Resortation
- 14 Conservation and management
- References
- Index
- Plate section
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface to the second edition
- Preface to the first edition
- Acknowledgments
- 1 Wetlands: an overview
- 2 Flooding
- 3 Fertility
- 4 Disturbance
- 5 Competition
- 6 Herbivory
- 7 Burial
- 8 Other factors
- 9 Diversity
- 10 Zonation: shorelines as a prism
- 11 Services and functions
- 12 Research: paths forward
- 13 Resortation
- 14 Conservation and management
- References
- Index
- Plate section
Summary
Many kinds of animals eat plants, so it might be reasonable to expect animals to have a significant effect on wetlands. Yet when we visit wetlands, we find that many are green and covered in plants, which could mean that herbivores are relatively unimportant. So just what is the story?
In general, we will see that plants are actually rather well defended from animals. There are two particular ways by which this occurs. First, the plants may have chemical defenses that deter herbivores from eating the plant, or interfere with their ability to digest the plants. Further, many plants have such low nutrient levels in their tissues that they provide a very poor food source and are thereby avoided.
We shall also see that there is evidence that predators may keep the populations of herbivores from becoming large enough to remove the plants from wetlands. The absence of natural predators may, in fact, be what has caused those exceptional cases where herbivores have turned the marsh into mud flats.
Herbivory interacts with other factors. Some processes add biological material to wetlands, and other processes remove it. The former include photosynthesis, growth, and reproduction; the latter include fire, decomposition, and herbivory. Processes that remove biomass are generally considered to be disturbances (Chapter 4). Disturbances can be considered either abiotic (flooding, fire, ice scour, landslides) or biotic (herbivory, burrowing, trampling). In some ways these disturbances are similar; in other ways they are different.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Wetland EcologyPrinciples and Conservation, pp. 160 - 187Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2010
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