Performance and preference of four above- and below-ground invertebrate and generalist herbivores on regionally and locally rare plant species

Rare plant species are suggested to be less resistant to herbivores than common species. Their lower apparency and the fact that they often live in isolated populations, resulting in fewer herbivore encounters, might have led to the evolution of reduced defenses. Moreover, their frequently lower levels of genetic diversity compared with common species could negatively affect their resistance against enemies. However, the hypothesis that plant resistance depends on plant regional and local rarity, independently of habitat and competitive and growth strategy, lacks evidence. To test this hypothesis, we assessed the performance and preference of one belowground and three aboveground generalist invertebrate herbivores from different taxonomic groups as indicators of plant resistance. Herbivores were fed a total of 62 regionally and locally rare and common plant species from Switzerland. We accounted for differences in a plant’s growth and competitive strategy and habitat resource availabili..., Data were collected during two experiments to assess the performance (i.e. weight gain) and the preference of three above-ground and one below-ground invertebrate and generalist herbivores on multiple plant species varying in local and regional rarity, habitat resource-availability, growth and competitive strategies. Please, find all the details about the methodology in Bürli et al. (2023) \"Are rare plant species less resistant than common ones to herbivores? A multi-plant species study using above- and below-ground generalist herbivores\" published in Ecology & Evolution. DOI: 10.1002/ece3.10482 , To open the dataset (.csv), we suggest to use Libre Office Calc or Excel. To analyse the data, we suggest using R.,