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AOBPreview published online on August 11, 2008
Annals of Botany, doi:10.1093/aob/mcn130
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© The Author 2008. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Annals of Botany Company. All rights reserved. For Permissions, please email: journals.permissions@oxfordjournals.org

A Novel Mechanism by which Silica Defends Grasses Against Herbivory

J. W. Hunt, A. P. Dean, R. E. Webster, G. N. Johnson and A. R. Ennos*

Faculty of Life Sciences, University of Manchester, Jackson's Mill, PO Box 88, Manchester M60 1QD, UK

* For correspondence. E-mail r.ennos{at}manchester.ac.uk

Received: 25 March 2008    Returned for revision: 19 May 2008    Accepted: 24 June 2008   

Background and Aims: Previous studies have shown that silica in grass leaves defends them against small herbivores, which avoid high-silica grasses and digest them less efficiently. This study tested the idea that silica can reduce digestibility by preventing the mechanical breakdown of chlorenchyma cells.

Methods: Both the percentage of total chlorophyll liberated from high- and low-silica grass leaves by mechanical grinding and the chlorophyll content of locust faeces were measured.

Key Results: High-silica grasses released less chlorophyll after grinding and retained more after passing through the gut of locusts, showing that silica levels correlated with increased mechanical protection.

Conclusions: These results suggest that silica may defend grasses at least in part by reducing mechanical breakdown of the leaf, and that mechanical protection of resources in chlorenchyma cells is a novel and potentially important mechanism by which silica protects grasses.

Key words: Grass, silica, locust, digestibility, defence, Lolium perenne, Festuca ovina


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