Native Plants More Delectable to Insects than Weeds
July 13, 2007| |
Foliage eating insects prefer the taste of native plants to those of weeds, according to a study by Queensland University of Technology (QUT). The attack by herbivores gives an advantage to weeds.
"While many plants need insects to reproduce there are many insects that simply feed off plants and this is having an effect on natives," said Eva White, from QUT’s School of Natural Resource Sciences. "Herbivores demonstrated a preference for the native plant, causing higher levels of damage to the foliage of the native both in the field and in laboratory trials."
White also found that while pollinators were not ignoring natives, their interest in weeds was producing a hybrid native/weed species of seed. Hybrids that are created are not as healthy as the original plant and hybrids seeds are not able to survive to maturity, wasting much of the reproductive effort.
Read the news release at http://www.news.qut.edu.au/cgi-bin/WebObjects/News.woa/wa/goNewsPage?newsEventID=13153.
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