Abiotic stress tolerance and SLA interact to shape herbivore guild composition, but SLA modulates rather than mediates this relationship, defining a context within which other, unidentified factors (e.g., most specific defense traits) operate. The strong spatial structure in herbivore communities likely reflects biogeographic processes (dispersal limitation, host specificity, regional species pool assembly) that operate independently of contemporary trait distributions. Understanding plant-herbivore interactions at macroecological scales requires integrating trait-based filtering with historical and biogeographic constraints.
Cerdeira-Pérez et al. (Wed,) studied this question.