herbivory en · NOUN
Pronunciation
- (US) audio
- /hɚˈbɪvəɹi/ (General-American)
- /həˈbɪvəɹi/ (Received-Pronunciation)
Etymology
Etymology tree English herbivore Latin -ia Old French -ieder. Middle English -ie Middle English -y English -y English herbivory From herbivore + -y.
Meanings
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(uncountable) The consumption of living plant tissue by animals.
Herbivory is a paradoxical interspecific interaction. On the one hand, upward of a quarter of all species are herbivorous insects (Strong et al., 1984) and some additional fraction of the noninsect species is also herbivorous, so plant-herbivore interactions are common. On the other hand, the simple observation is that, to a first approximation, the earth is green (Hairston et al., 1960), despite the combined effect of those herbivores.
1998, Sam Scheiner, Design and Analysis of Ecological Experiments, CRC Press, →ISBN, page 183:
Relateds
antiherbivory · herbivorous · herbivore
Synonyms
Translations (5)
it fitofagia (the consumption of living plant tissue by animals) · pl roślinożerność (the consumption of living plant tissue by animals) · fi kasvinsyönti (the consumption of living plant tissue by animals) · pt herbivoria (the consumption of living plant tissue by animals) · cs býložravost (the consumption of living plant tissue by animals)