In Tropical Lowland Rain Forests Monocots have Tougher Leaves than Dicots, and Include a New Kind of Tough Leaf

摘要

Background and Aims There has been little previous work on the toughness of the laminae of monocots in tropical lowland rain forest (TLRF) despite the potential importance of greater toughness in inhibiting herbivory by invertebrates. Of 15 monocot families with >100 species in TLRF, eight have notably high densities of fibres in the lamina so that high values for toughness are expected.