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Herbivory is of extreme ecological importance and prevalence among insects.Perhaps one third (or 500,000) of all described species are herbivores. [4] Herbivorous insects are by far the most important animal pollinators, and constitute significant prey items for predatory animals, as well as acting as major parasites and predators of plants; parasitic species often induce the formation of galls.
This plays an important role for generalist herbivores that eat a variety of plants. Keystone herbivores keep vegetation populations in check and allow for a greater diversity of both herbivores and plants. [63] When an invasive herbivore or plant enters the system, the balance is thrown off and the diversity can collapse to a monotaxon system ...
This is one example of how overbrowsing can lead to the loss of reproductive individuals in a population, and a lack of recruitment of young plants. Plants also differ in their palatability to herbivores. At high densities of herbivores, plants that are highly selected as browse may be missing small and large individuals from the population. [18]
Primary consumers are herbivores, feeding on plants or algae. Caterpillars, insects, grasshoppers, termites and hummingbirds are all examples of primary consumers because they only eat autotrophs (plants). There are certain primary consumers that are called specialists because they only eat one type of producers.
Teuthophagore: eating mainly squid and other cephalopods; Vermivore: eating worms; Zooplanktonivore: eating zooplankton; Herbivore: the eating of plants Exudativore: eating plant and/or insect exudates (gum, sap, lerp, etc.) Gummivore: eating tree sap or gum; Folivore: eating leaves; Florivore: eating flower tissue prior to seed coat formation
A well-known example of a specialist animal is the monophagous koala, which subsists almost entirely on eucalyptus leaves. The raccoon is a generalist, because it has a natural range that includes most of North and Central America, and it is omnivorous, eating berries, insects such as butterflies, eggs, and various small animals.
Many small selective herbivores follow larger grazers which skim off the highest, tough growth of grasses, exposing tender shoots. For terrestrial animals, grazing is normally distinguished from browsing in that grazing is eating grass or forbs, whereas browsing is eating woody twigs and leaves from trees and shrubs. [1]
Graminivores generally exhibit a preference on which species of grass they choose to consume. For example, according to a study done on North American bison feeding on shortgrass plains in north-eastern Colorado, the cattle consumed a total of thirty-six different species of plant. Of that thirty-six, five grass species were favoured and ...