In the Anthropocene, more than three quarters of ice-free land has experienced some form of human-driven habitat modification, with agriculture dominating 40% of the Earth’s surface. This land use change alters the quality, availability, and configuration of habitat resources, affecting the community composition of plants and insects, as well as their interactions with each other. Landscapes dominated by agriculture are known to support a lower abundance and diversity of pollinators and frequently larger populations of key herbivore pests. In turn, insect communities subsidized by agriculture may spill into remaining natural habitats with consequences for wild plants persisting in (semi) natural habitats. Adaptive responses by wild plants may allow them to persist in highly modified landscapes; yet how landscape-mediated variation in insect communities affects wild plant traits related to reproduction and defense remains largely unknown. We synthesize the evidence for plant trait changes across land use gradients and propose potential mechanisms by which landscape-mediated changes in insect communities may be driving these trait changes. Further, we present results from a common garden experiment on three wild Brassica species demonstrating variation in both defensive and reproductive traits along an agricultural land use gradient. Our framework illustrates the potential for plant adaptation under land use change and predicts how defense and reproduction trait expression may shift in low diversity landscapes. We highlight areas of future research into plant population and community effects of land use change.

在人类世，四分之三以上的无冰土地经历了某种形式的人类驱动的栖息地改造，其中农业占了地球表面的40％。土地用途的这种变化改变了栖息地资源的质量，可用性和配置，影响了植物和昆虫的群落组成以及它们之间的相互作用。众所周知，以农业为主的景观可支持较低的授粉媒介数量和多样性，并且经常增加主要的食草动物害虫种群。反过来，由农业补贴的昆虫群落可能溢出到剩余的自然栖息地中，对野生植物在（半）自然栖息地中的存留造成后果。野生植物的适应性反应可能使它们在经过高度改造的景观中生存；然而，昆虫群落中景观介导的变异如何影响与繁殖和防御相关的野生植物性状仍然未知。我们综合了跨土地利用梯度的植物性状变化的证据，并提出了潜在的机制，昆虫群落中景观介导的变化可能通过这些机制推动了这些性状的变化。此外，我们展示了三种常见的野外花园实验的结果芸苔属在农业土地利用梯度上展现防御和生殖性状变化的物种。我们的框架说明了土地利用变化下植物适应的潜力，并预测了防御和繁殖性状表达如何在低多样性景观中转移。我们重点介绍了有关植物种群和土地利用变化的社区影响的未来研究领域。