Plant size, latitude, and phylogeny explain within-population variability in herbivory

Interactions between plants and herbivores are central in most ecosystems, but their strength is highly variable. The amount of variability within a system is thought to influence most aspects of plant-herbivore biology, from ecological stability to plant defense evolution. Our understanding of what influences variability, however, is limited by sparse data. We collected standardized surveys of herbivory for 503 plant species at 790 sites across 116° of latitude. With these data, we show that within-population variability in herbivory increases with latitude, decreases with plant size, and is phylogenetically structured. Differences in the magnitude of variability are thus central to how plant-herbivore biology varies across macroscale gradients. We argue that increased focus on interaction variability will advance understanding of patterns of life on Earth., , , # Plant size, latitude, and phylogeny explain within-population variability in herbivory

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This dataset and set of scripts was produced by the members of The Herbivory Variability Network. It examines global and phylogenetic patterns of herbivory via 790 suveys of 503 plant species.

Our website is [herbvar.org](https://herbvar.org). We are funded by the US National Science Foundation Research Coordination Networks program. The Principal Investigators (PIs) of the project are William Wetzel (), Phil Hahn, Brian Inouye, Nora Underwood, and Susan Whitehead. The steering committee is the PIs and Karen Abbott, Emilio Bruna, N. Ivalú Cacho, and Lee Dyer. Our contact information is [here](https://herbvar.org/leadership.html). For the full list of HerbVar members, please see [this webpage](https://herbvar.org/CollaboratorDirectory.html).

This version of the dataset and analysis is associated with the following paper: The Herbivory Variability Network et al. 2023. Plant size, latitude, and...