title: Plants are not sitting ducks waiting for herbivores to eat them.
abstract: There is a common attitude toward plants, accordingly, plants are waiting around to be found and eaten by herbivores. This common approach toward plants is a great underestimation of the huge and variable arsenal of defensive plant strategies. Plants do everything evolution has allowed them to do in order not to be eaten. Therefore, plants are not sitting ducks and many plants outsmart and even exploit many invertebrate and vertebrate herbivores and carnivores for pollination and for seed dispersal, and even carnivores and parasitoids for defense.
authors.affiliation: a Department of Biology & Environment , Faculty of Natural Sciences, University of Haifa - Oranim , Tivon , Israel.
authors.forename: Simcha
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Lev-Yadun
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D005075:Biological Evolution; D060434:Herbivory / Q000502:physiology*; D008322:Mammals / Q000502:physiology; D010944:Plants / Q000276:immunology / Q000378:metabolism*; D054817:Pollination / Q000502:physiology
keywords: Defense; herbivory; plants; sitting ducks