Abstract
Resprouting woody plants are vulnerable to large mammal herbivores in the early stages of regeneration after disturbance (e.g., fire, slashing), because herbivory reduces the storage of below-ground starch reserves and may thus compromise regeneration success. Defence from herbivory may incur a cost to resprouter plants in terms of lengthening the time to recovery of pre-disturbance starch levels. Erica scoparia and E. australis (Ericaceae), two resprouter woody species that co-occur in Mediterranean heath-communities of the Strait of Gibraltar, differ in the way they cope with herbivory: E. scoparia is browsing-tolerant and E. australis is a browsing-avoider. Our experimental field study demonstrated that exposure to a moderate density of ungulate herbivores markedly lowered starch re-storage after resprouting in E. scoparia, but not in E. australis. Nevertheless, time to recover pre-disturbance starch levels was shorter in the tolerant E. scoparia, even under exposure to herbivores. The slower starch recovery rate of E. australis is a likely outcome of its resource-demanding browsing-avoidance mechanism. Differences in starch recovery rates after disturbance between the two Erica species partly explains their ecological segregation at the landscape scale.
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