Recent studies assessing the role of biological diversity for ecosystem functioning indicate that the diversity of functional traits and the evolutionary history of species in a community, not the number of taxonomic units, ultimately drives the biodiversity–ecosystem‐function relationship. Here, we simultaneously assessed the importance of plant functional trait and phylogenetic diversity as predictors of major trophic groups...

Plant functional traits affect the capacity of herbivores to find, choose, and consume plants. However, in a community composed of different plant species, it is unclear what proportion of herbivory on a focal plant is explained by its own traits and which is explained by the characteristics of the surrounding vegetation (i.e., nonadditive effects). Moreover, nonadditive effects could be positive or negative, and it is not kno...

Invertebrate herbivores can impact plant performance and plant communities. Conversely, plants can affect the ability of herbivores to find, choose, and consume them through their functional traits. While single plant traits have been related to rates of herbivory, most often involving single herbivore–plant pairs, much less is known about which suite of plant traits is important for determining herbivory for a pool of plant s...