Interactions Between Herbivory and Pollination in Plant Systems

Plants navigate a complex web of interactions in which herbivores and pollinators exert opposing influences on reproductive success. Herbivory, the consumption of vegetative or floral tissues, can directly reduce flower number and alter floral traits such as colour, scent and morphology. These changes often cascade to affect pollinator attraction and efficiency, leading to indirect impacts on seed set and fruit production. Conversely, pollinator visits can promote plant vigour and compensate for tissue loss through enhanced reproduction. The balance between these antagonistic and mutualistic interactions is shaped by plant defence strategies, including constitutive and induced responses that modulate volatile emissions and resource allocation. Environmental context—from landscape composition to resource density—further determines the scale and direction of these effects, with implications for ecosystem services, crop yields and biodiversity conservation.

Research from Nature Portfolio

One recent investigation along a gradient from natural to simplified agricultural landscapes demonstrated that greater landscape complexity increased herbivore damage on both resident and experimental plants, reducing total flower production but enlarging individual flowers; the larger blossoms attracted more pollinators yet failed to offset the loss in overall reproductive output. A complementary modelling and empirical study in a wild tomato system revealed that herbivore-induced chemical defences curtailed pollinator visits to individual plants, yet population-level dynamics could benefit from such responses by stabilising mutualist–antagonist communities under attack.

Interactions Between Herbivory and Pollination in Plant Systems publication trend

The graph below shows the total number of articles in interactions between herbivory and pollination in plant systems across all publications each year (not limited to Nature Index journals).

Technical terms

Herbivory: consumption of plant tissues by animals, often leading to reduced growth and altered reproductive structures.

Florivory: specialised herbivory targeting flowers, which can directly damage reproductive organs and indirectly deter pollinators.

Induced defence: activation of plant chemical or physical barriers in response to herbivore attack, modifying interactions with both enemies and mutualists.

Volatile organic compounds (VOCs): airborne chemicals released by plants that mediate attraction or repulsion of insects and other organisms.

Resource dilution effect: phenomenon whereby individual resource units (e.g. flowers) receive fewer visits when overall resource density is high, due to forager distribution patterns.

References

1. Agricultural landscape simplification affects wild plant reproduction indirectly through herbivore-mediated changes in floral display. Scientific Reports (2024).
2. Functional reduction in pollination through herbivore-induced pollinator limitation and its potential in mutualist communities. Nature Communications (2017).
3. The combined effects of resource landscapes and herbivory on pollination services in agro‐ecosystems. Ecography (2024).
4. Effects of Florivory on Floral Visitors and Reproductive Success of Sagittaria lancifolia (Alismataceae) in a Mexican Wetland. Plants (2024).
5. Effects of anti-herbivore resistance on sensory characteristics and ripening of strawberry. Scientia Horticulturae (2023).