Costs and Benefits
Defensive structures and chemicals are costly as they require resources that could otherwise be used by plants to maximize growth and reproduction. Many models have been proposed to explore how and why some plants make this investment in defenses against herbivores.
Read more about this topic: Plant Defense Against Herbivory
Famous quotes containing the words costs and/or benefits:
“Pride can go without domestics, without fine clothes, can live in a house with two rooms, can eat potato, purslain, beans, lyed corn, can work on the soil, can travel afoot, can talk with poor men, or sit silent well contented with fine saloons. But vanity costs money, labor, horses, men, women, health and peace, and is still nothing at last; a long way leading nowhere.—Only one drawback; proud people are intolerably selfish, and the vain are gentle and giving.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“In America the young are always ready to give to those who are older than themselves the full benefits of their inexperience.”
—Oscar Wilde (1854–1900)