The tolerance of plants to herbivory reflects the degree to which a plant can regrow and reproduce after damage from herbivores. Recent work indicates that there is a heritable basis for tolerance and that it can evolve in natural plant populations. Although tolerance is probably not a strict alternative to plant resistance, there could be inter- and intraspecific tradeoffs between these defensive strategies. The evolution of tolerance can promote an apparently mutualistic relationship between herbivores and their host plants. Tolerance does not impose selection on herbivores. In contrast, a coevolutionary arms race of plant resistance and counterdefense by herbivores could cause greater long-term instability in the relationship between plant and herbivore taxa, and greater variation in population sizes as favorable defensive mutants in both taxa sweep through the populations.
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