Plants employ diverse anti-herbivore defences that can covary to form syndromes consisting of multiple traits. Such syndromes are hypothesized to impact herbivores more than individual defences. We studied 16 species of lowland willows occurring in central Europe and explored if their chemical and physical traits form detectable syndromes. We tested for phylogenetic trends in the syndromes and explored whether three herbivore guilds (i.e., generalist leaf-chewers, specialist leaf-chewers, and gallers) are affected more by the detected syndromes or individual traits. The recovered syndromes showed low phylogenetic signal and were mainly defined by investment in concentration, richness, or uniqueness of structurally related phenolic metabolites. Resource acquisition traits or inducible volatile organic compounds exhibited a limited correlation with the syndromes. Individual traits composing the syndromes showed various correlations to the assemblages of herbivores from the three studied guilds. In turn, we found some support for the hypothesis that defence syndromes are composed of traits that provide defence against various herbivores. However, individual traits rather than trait syndromes explained more variation for all studied herbivore assemblages. The detected negative correlations between various phenolics suggest that investment trade-offs may occur primarily among plant metabolites with shared metabolic pathways that may compete for their precursors. Moreover, several traits characterizing the recovered syndromes play additional roles in willows other than defence from herbivory. Taken together, our findings suggest that the detected syndromes did not solely evolve as an anti-herbivore defence.

Agriculture and Environment Department Harper Adams University Newport United Kingdom

Bioanalytical Laboratory Institute of Biomedicine University of Turku Turku Finland

Biology Centre of the Czech Academy of Sciences Ceske Budejovice Czech Republic

Department of Biology Aarhus University Aarhus Denmark

Department of Forest Nature Conservation Faculty of Forest Sciences and Forest Ecology Georg August University of Göttingen Göttingen Germany

Department of Integrative Biology University of Texas at Austin Austin TX United States of America

Faculty of Science Department of Zoology University of South Bohemia Ceske Budejovice Czech Republic

German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research Halle Jena Leipzig Leipzig Germany

Institute of Biodiversity Friedrich Schiller University Jena Jena Germany

Institute of Microbiology Centre Algatech Czech Academy of Sciences Trebon Czech Republic

Natural Chemistry Research Group Department of Chemistry University of Turku Turku Finland

Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute Ancón Panama

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Oecologia. 2024 Aug;205(3-4):739-740. doi: 10.1007/s00442-024-05586-z. PubMed

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