The Dependence of Herbivory on Growth Rate in Natural Plant Communities

1. The hypothesis that herbivory pressure (defined as the per cent of the photosynthetic tissue biomass and production consumed daily by herbivores) increases with increasing plant growth rate was tested. The basis for the test was a compilation of 56 published reports on biomass, production and herbivory, from a wide range of aquatic and terrestrial plant communities. 2. Herbivory was independent of ecosystem primary production and the fraction of plant production and biomass daily consumed by herbivores increased as the 0.6 and 1.6 power of plant turnover rate, respectively. 3. These results suggest that the tendency of fast-growing plants to support lower biomass of photosynthetic tissues than slow-growing ones can be accounted for by the tendency of herbivore control of plant biomass and production to increase with increasing plant growth rate