BRS: Loralee Larios “Disentangling the effects of small mammals on plant community structure”

host: Jennifer Williams

Title: “Disentangling the effects of small mammals on plant community structure”

Abstract: Determining the factors that regulate plant abundance and composition has been a long-standing endeavor for ecologists. Traditionally, this issue has been addressed with a “bottom-up” perspective and has focused primarily on the relative importance of environmental factors and plant-plant interactions in structuring communities. Despite our growing understanding of the importance of generalist consumers in affecting plant communities, top-down impacts are rarely included in trait-based studies of plant community assembly. Here, I will present research that explores how small mammal generalist herbivores impact plant composition and the extent to which this is mediated by the traits of the individual plant species and how this plant-herbivore interaction may shift with environmental conditions.