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Article: Plant phase change and resistance to herbivory.
- Article from:
- Ecology
- Article date:
- March 1, 1999
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 1999 Ecological Society of America. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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INTRODUCTION
All plants pass through a series of predictable developmental stages during their lives (Poethig 1990). Seedlings consist of embryonic tissue: radicle, hypocotyl, and cotyledons. The cotyledons are succeeded on the shoot by juvenile leaves, adult leaves, and finally reproductive tissue. Each of these transitions is often accompanied by profound changes in morphology (such as leaf shape) and in physiology (such as photosynthetic rates) (e.g., Bauer and Bauer 1980, Hutchison et al. 1990). These developmental changes produce tissues that differ in many important ways, a phenomenon known as heteroblasty. In addition, changes in resistance to plant ...