Allomones II plant chemical defenses against herbivores

Allomones II plant chemical defenses against herbivores 

The plant world is not colored green it is colored morphine, caffeine, tannin, phenol, terpene, canavanine, latex, phytohaem-agglutinin, oxalic acid, saponin, L-dopa, etc. JANZEN (1978) 

Herbivores select certain plant species or parts and reject others. Plant defenses determine food choices as much as nutritional value does. Plants can defend themselves mechanically as with thorns, hairs, waxes, or structural fibers, and chemically with secondary plant compounds. Mammals have had to cope with plant defenses since they adapted to an herbivorous lifestyle approximately 85-100 millions years ago (Archibald, 1996). 

The interactions of plants and vertebrate herbivores can be broken down into several questions. 

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