The Effects of Herbivory and Granivory on Terrestrial Plant Succession

Based on resource availability models of plant defense investment, several authors have predicted and documented that herbivores tend to accelerate the pace of plant community succession. A literature survey of experimental and observational tests of the effects of above-ground, native herbivores on terrestrial plant succession reveals a more complex pattern than anticipated from earlier reviews on this subject. Although herbivory tends to hasten succession from grasses, shrubs, and pioneer trees to persistent trees (often including conifers), it typically retards succession from earlier seres, if such seres are present (e.g., as in secondary succession of old fields) (...)