The type and intensity of plant-herbivore interactions are likely to be altered under climate change as a consequence of differential dispersal rates of plants and their herbivores. Here, we studied variation in herbivore damage on Salvia nubicola in the field and compared its growth and defence strategies against herbivores in controlled conditions using seeds from populations along a broad altitudinal gradient. Our work is one of the first studies to simultaneously measure complex intraspecific variation in plant growth, direct and indirect defences as well as plant tolerance (ability to regrow) as a consequence of herbivore attack simulated by clipping. In the field, we found that plants experienced higher herbivore pressure in lower altitudes. In the greenhouse, plants grown from seeds collected in lower-altitude populations grew better and produced a higher content of phenolic compounds (direct defence) and volatile organic compounds (indirect defence) in response to simulated herbivory. However, there were no differences in tolerance and effect of S. nubicola extracts on the model generalist herbivore Spodoptera littoralis (direct defence) along the altitudinal gradient. Although we found that S. nubicola developed a range of defence strategies, the strategies do not seem to be used simultaneously in all populations even though most of them are correlated with altitudinal gradient. Our finding is in agreement with the current knowledge that co-expression of multiple defences might be costly for a plant, since investment in defensive traits is assumed to reduce the resource availability for growth and reproduction. Our study thus shows the importance of simultaneous study of different defence strategies since understanding these trade-offs could be necessary for detecting the mechanisms by which plants are able to cope with future climate change.

Crop Research Institute Drnovská 507 Prague CZ 16106 Czech Republic

Institute of Botany The Czech Academy of Sciences Zámek 1 Průhonice CZ 25243 Czech Republic Department of Biodiversity Research Global Change Research Institute The Czech Academy of Sciences Bělidla 4a Brno CZ 60300 Czech Republic

Institute of Botany The Czech Academy of Sciences Zámek 1 Průhonice CZ 25243 Czech Republic Department of Botany Faculty of Science Charles University Prague Benátská 2 Prague CZ 12801 Czech Republic

Institute of Experimental Botany The Czech Academy of Sciences Rozvojová 313 Prague CZ 16502 Czech Republic

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Data on Herbivore Performance and Plant Herbivore Damage Identify the Same Plant Traits as the Key Drivers of Plant-Herbivore Interaction

Plant palatability and trait responses to experimental warming

Plant Origin, but Not Phylogeny, Drive Species Ecophysiological Response to Projected Climate

Altitude, habitat type and herbivore damage interact in their effects on plant population dynamics