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| Description: The size of food (e.g., litter fragment) that a detritivore eats is often strongly related to its size. This relationship does not hold up for herbivores, where individuals of greatly different sizes may all eat the same parts of the same plant. For example, when you commit the herbivorous act of biting into an apple, you are likely aware of the chance that a smaller herbivore, the larvae of the codling moth (Carpocapsa spp.), may itself already be consuming that fruit. You may be less aware that on the surface of that fruit a variety of mites, aphids, and other insects may have been, or still are, consuming the same apple. In other words, a single part of a plant can be a food for animals of dramatically different sizes. If you were instead to consume a different part of a plant, such as plant leaves in a salad, you once again will likely be consuming a diversity of animals along with the plant tissue. Many of these animals were likely themselves busily eating away before you ruthlessly put them and their host plant into your salad bowl. These herbivores include other species of aphids, leafhoppers, caterpillars, beetles, mites, and ants. Aside from the small herbivores that were hoping to share your lunch, there may also have been deer and rabbits snacking in your garden before you arrived. We can learn many things from these examples. First, the idea that a person could ever create a diet completely devoid of the consumption of living animals is, well, not biologically plausible. Second, the differences in the species composition of the herbivores found on different plant tissues are not just random events. Instead, different plant tissues are structurally and chemically dissimilar, even within a single plant. Because of these differences, you will find adaptations among herbivores as a function of what they eat, even if they differ greatly is size.
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