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The Effect of Defoliation on Seed Production of Six Costa Rican Tree Species

The experiments reported here test the hypothesis that increased foliage losses lead to decreased reproduction in plants. Six Costa Rican tree species were defoliated by hand twice during 1970. Subsequent collection of fruit crops during 1971 showed that control totals for fruit number and weight were much larger than totals of defoliated trees in all six species. Over 80% of the experimental defoliated plants produced no fruit whatsoever. Individual controls outproduced occurred in either. It is concluded that heavy defoliation of wild trees will practically eliminate seed production for the year in which it takes place. These data and other work with crop plants have shown that both growth and reproduction are functions of leaf area. Consequently, heave defoliation drastically reduced the fitness of a plant. Herbivore consumption of plant parts has probably played an important role in the evolution of both the morphology and chemistry of plants. These data support the view that physical and chemical defenses evolved by plants have played an important role in plant—herbivore co—evolution.