Our research questions were: (i) does the resource investment on reproduction causes a depletion in vegetative growth as predicted by CNBH, resulting in more availability of resources to be allocated for defense?, (ii) does the variation in resource allocation for growth and defense between years of high and low fruiting leads to indirect changes in herbivory?
Additionally, we built a model to see if there was a trade-off between growth and defense as proposed by CNBH hypothesis.
In the reproductive year, plants that experienced higher wood biomass probably invested less in tannin production, as predicted by CNBH (Herms & Mattson, 1992).