herbivore
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AI overview
A herbivore is an animal that eats plants as its primary food source, including leaves, foliage, algae, and other plant material. Herbivores are important in ecosystems because they consume plants and serve as food sources for other animals, forming a key link in food chains.
AI-generated from the Wikipedia summary — may contain errors.
Article
17 sectionsContents
- Etymology
- Definition and related terms
- Evolution of herbivory{{anchor|evolution}}
- Food chain
- Feeding strategies
- Plant-herbivore interactions
- Herbivore offense
- Plant defense
- Predator–prey theory
- Mutualism
- Impacts
- Trophic cascades and environmental degradation
- Economic impacts
- See also
- References
- Further reading
- External links
thumb|250px|A deer and two fawns feeding on foliage thumb|250px|A sawfly larva feeding on a leaf thumb|250px|Tracks made by terrestrial gastropods with their radulas, scraping [[green algae from a surface inside a greenhouse]]
A herbivore is an animal anatomically or physiologically evolved to feed on plants, especially upon vascular tissues such as foliage, fruits or seeds, as the main component of its diet. These more broadly also encompass animals that eat non-vascular autotrophs such as mosses, algae and lichens, but do not include those feeding on decomposed plant matters (i.e. detritivores) or macrofungi (i.e. fungivores).