Finally, about four years after collecting grasses from the tundra, I have finished the Chapter five "The story of grasses, reindeer and voles" of my PhD. (Not that the others are finished, but this one fits well as the last chapter ;) An article with a relatively more scientific name "More than herbivory: levels of silica-based defences in grasses vary with plant species, genotype and location" will be published at a journal called "Oikos". So if you go to site: "http://eu.wiley.com/WileyCDA/WileyTitle/productCd-OIK.html" and search for the title of that paper you should be able to get the abstract out, in a while. It may take some months before it is there... if they are busy...but they have promised to publish it!
As one could guess, the story did not at all go the way I thought in the beginning... Shortly: reindeer and voles eat grasses, which could get the idea of adding nasty, untasty silica-crystals in their leaves to get rid of animals who feed on them. Well, some do, some don't... I tried to find out which one of the do, which don't, and most of all; why? Is there any sort of pattern in any of that? Or are the grasses just fooling the poor researcher?
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