Differential foraging for resources, and structural plasticity in plants

Abstract

Although ecologists have spent much effort in analysing the foraging behaviour of animals, the study of plants as foraging organisms is a relatively unexplored subject. There is often, however, much greater potential for analysis of foraging behaviour in plants than in animals. Unlike most animals, many plant species leave permanent or semi-permanent records of their foraging activities because their resource-acquiring structures (primarily leaves and roots), persist for a considerable time, as also do the structures (trunks, branches, stolons, runners or rhizomes) which enable leaves or roots to be projected into particular positions in the habitat. In addition, plant ecologists are not burdened with the difficulties associated with determining how changes in foraging behaviour affect fitness in animals(1), because plant mass (or, in the case of clonal species, number of ramets produced), is usually closely correlated with fitness.