Estimated within and among family variance components and heritability of tolerance to defoliation, and compensation after repeated defoliation events in a greenhouse experiment, performed seedlings of the understorey palm Chamaedorea elegans.

To be able to estimate tolerance and compensation, individuals from the defoliation treatment were coupled to individuals from the control treatment based on their estimated biomass at the start of the experiment. Compensation was calculated by using an iterative growth model that allowed estimation of a hypothetical non-compensating individual.