scholarly journals Understanding the ecology of host plant–insect herbivore interactions in the fossil record through bipartite networks

Paleobiology ◽  
2021 ◽  
pp. 1-22
Author(s):  
Anshuman Swain ◽  
S. Augusta Maccracken ◽  
William F. Fagan ◽  
Conrad C. Labandeira
Keyword(s):  
Fossil Record ◽  
Local Community ◽  
Insect Herbivory ◽  
Leaf Damage ◽  
Fossil Flora ◽  
Bipartite Network ◽  
Bipartite Networks ◽  
Plant Insect Interactions ◽  
Central Texas ◽  
Insect Interactions

Abstract Plant–insect associations have been a significant component of terrestrial ecology for more than 400 Myr. Exploring these interactions in the fossil record through novel perspectives provides a window into understanding evolutionary and ecological forces that shaped these interactions. For the past several decades, researchers have documented, described, and categorized fossil evidence of these interactions. Drawing on powerful tools from network science, we propose here a bipartite network representation of fossilized plants and their herbivore-induced leaf damage to understand late Paleozoic plant–insect interactions at the local community level. We focus on four assemblages from north-central Texas, but the methods used in this work are general and can be applied to any well-preserved fossil flora. Network analysis can address key questions in the evolution of insect herbivory that often would be difficult to summarize using standard herbivory metrics.

Resilience of plant-insect interactions in an oak lineage through Quaternary climate change

Paleobiology ◽  
2015 ◽  
Vol 41 (1) ◽  
pp. 174-186 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tao Su ◽  
Jonathan M. Adams ◽  
Torsten Wappler ◽  
Yong-Jiang Huang ◽  
Frédéric M. B. Jacques ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Insect Herbivory ◽  
Terrestrial Ecosystems ◽  
Fossil Flora ◽  
Geological Time ◽  
Plant Insect Interactions ◽  
Quaternary Climate ◽  
Insect Interactions ◽  
Damage Types ◽  
Modern Sample

AbstractPlant-insect interactions are vital for structuring terrestrial ecosystems. It is still unclear how climate change in geological time might have shaped plant-insect interactions leading to modern ecosystems. We investigated the effect of Quaternary climate change on plant-insect interactions by observing insect herbivory on leaves of an evergreen sclerophyllous oak lineage (QuercussectionHeterobalanus, HET) from a late Pliocene flora and eight living forests in southwestern China. Among the modern HET populations investigated, the damage diversity tends to be higher in warmer and wetter climates. Even though the climate of the fossil flora was warmer and wetter than modern sample sites, the damage diversity is lower in the fossil flora than in modern HET populations. Eleven out of 18 damage types in modern HET populations are observed in the fossil flora. All damage types in the fossil flora, except for one distinctive gall type, are found in modern HET populations. These results indicate that Quaternary climate change did not cause extensive extinction of insect herbivores in HET forests. The accumulation of a more diverse herbivore fauna over time supports the view of plant species as evolutionary “islands” for colonization and turnover of insect species.

scholarly journals Generating and testing hypotheses about the fossil record of insect herbivory with a theoretical ecospace

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sandra R Schachat ◽  
Jonathan L Payne ◽  
C Kevin Boyce ◽  
Conrad C Labandeira
Keyword(s):  
Surface Area ◽  
Fossil Record ◽  
Leaf Surface ◽  
Insect Herbivory ◽  
Fossil Flora ◽  
Insect Damage ◽  
Leaf Surface Area ◽  
Number Of Leaves ◽  
Damage Type ◽  
Damage Types

A typical fossil flora examined for insect herbivory contains a few hundred leaves and a dozen or two insect damage types. Paleontologists employ a wide variety of metrics to assess differences in herbivory among assemblages: damage type diversity, intensity (the proportion of leaves, or of leaf surface area, with insect damage), the evenness of diversity, and comparisons of the evenness and diversity of the flora to the evenness and diversity of damage types. Although the number of metrics calculated is quite large, given the amount of data that is usually available, the study of insect herbivory in the fossil record still lacks a quantitative framework that can be used to distinguish among different causes of increased insect herbivory and to generate null hypotheses of the magnitude of changes in insect herbivory over time. Moreover, estimates of damage type diversity, the most common metric, are generated with inconsistent sampling standardization routines. Here we demonstrate that coverage-based rarefaction yields valid and reliable estimates of damage type diversity that are robust to differences among floral assemblages in the number of leaves examined, average leaf surface area, and the inclusion of plant organs other than leaves such as seeds and axes. We outline the potential of a theoretical ecospace that combines various metrics to distinguish between potential causes of increased herbivory. We close with a discussion of the most appropriate uses of a theoretical ecospace for insect herbivory, with the overlapping damage type diversities of Paleozoic gymnosperms and Cenozoic angiosperms as a brief case study.

scholarly journals Linking host plants to damage types in the fossil record of insect herbivory

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sandra R Schachat ◽  
Jonathan L. Payne ◽  
C. Kevin Boyce
Keyword(s):  
Beta Diversity ◽  
Fossil Record ◽  
Host Plants ◽  
Insect Herbivory ◽  
Multiple Comparisons ◽  
Bipartite Network ◽  
Insect Damage ◽  
Ecological Literature ◽  
Network Metrics ◽  
Damage Types

Studies of insect herbivory on fossilized leaves tend to focus on a few, relatively simple metrics that are agnostic to the distribution of insect damage types among host plants. More complex metrics that link particular damage types to particular host plants have the potential to address additional ecological questions, but such metrics can be biased by sampling incompleteness due to the difficulty of distinguishing the true absence of a particular interaction from the failure to detect it---a challenge that has been raised in the ecological literature. We evaluate a range of methods for characterizing the relationships between damage types and host plants by performing resampling and subsampling exercises on a variety of datasets. We found that the components of beta diversity provide a more valid, reliable, and interpretable method for comparing component communities than do bipartite network metrics. We found the rarefaction of interactions to be a valid, reliable, and interpretable method for comparing compound communities. Both of these methods avoid the potential pitfalls of multiple comparisons. Lastly, we found that the host specificity of individual damage types is challenging to assess. Whereas some previously used methods are sufficiently biased by sampling incompleteness to be inappropriate for fossil herbivory data, alternatives exist that are perfectly suitable for fossil datasets with sufficient sample coverage.

scholarly journals Herbarium specimens reveal herbivory patterns across the genus Cucurbita

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Laura A. Jenny ◽  
Lori R. Shapiro ◽  
Charles C. Davis ◽  
T. Jonathan Davies ◽  
Naomi E. Pierce ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Insect Herbivory ◽  
Herbarium Specimens ◽  
Ecological Interactions ◽  
Native Range ◽  
Geographic Ranges ◽  
Plant Insect Interactions ◽  
New Methods ◽  
Related Plant ◽  
Insect Interactions

PREMISE: Quantifying how closely related plant species differ in susceptibility to insect herbivory is important for our understanding of variation in plant-insect ecological interactions and evolutionary pressures on plant functional traits. However, empirically measuring in situ variation in herbivory over the entire geographic range where a plant-insect complex occurs is logistically difficult. Recently, new methods have been developed to use herbarium specimens to investigate patterns in plant-insect interactions across geographic areas, and during periods of accelerating anthropogenic change. Such investigations can provide insights into changes in herbivory intensity and phenology in plants that are of ecological and agricultural importance. METHODS: Here, we analyze 274 pressed herbarium samples from all 14 species in the economically important plant genus Cucurbita (Cucurbitaceae) to investigate variation in herbivory damage. This collection is comprised of specimens of wild, undomesticated Cucurbita that were collected from across their native range in the Neotropics and subtropics, and Cucurbita cultivars that were collected from both within their native range and from locations where they have been introduced for agriculture in temperate Eastern North America. RESULTS: We find that herbivory is common on individuals of all Cucurbita species collected from throughout their geographic ranges; however, estimates of herbivory varied considerably among individuals, with greater damage observed in specimens collected from unmanaged habitat. We also find evidence that mesophytic species accrue more insect damage than xerophytic species. CONCLUSIONS: Our study demonstrates that herbarium specimens are a useful resource for understanding ecological interactions between domesticated crop plants and co-evolved insect herbivores.

Plant-Insect Interactions from Early Permian (Kungurian) Colwell Creek Pond, North-Central Texas: The Early Spread of Herbivory in Riparian Environments

2014 ◽  
Vol 175 (8) ◽  
pp. 855-890 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sandra R. Schachat ◽  
Conrad C. Labandeira ◽  
Jessie Gordon ◽  
Dan Chaney ◽  
Stephanie Levi ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Early Permian ◽  
North Central ◽  
Plant Insect Interactions ◽  
North Central Texas ◽  
Central Texas ◽  
Insect Interactions

scholarly journals Bookkeeping of insect herbivory trends in herbarium specimens of purple loosestrife ( Lythrum salicaria )

2018 ◽  
Vol 374 (1763) ◽  
pp. 20170398 ◽  
Author(s):  
Caroline Beaulieu ◽  
Claude Lavoie ◽  
Raphaël Proulx
Keyword(s):  
Invasive Plant ◽  
Insect Herbivory ◽  
Lythrum Salicaria ◽  
Leaf Damage ◽  
Purple Loosestrife ◽  
Herbarium Specimens ◽  
Feeding Damage ◽  
Voucher Specimens ◽  
Insect Interactions ◽  
Biodiversity Changes

The potential use of herbarium specimens to detect herbivory trends is enormous but largely untapped. The objective of this study was to reconstruct the long-term herbivory pressure on the Eurasian invasive plant, purple loosestrife ( Lythrum salicaria ), by evaluating leaf damage over 1323 specimens from southern Québec (Canada). The hypothesis tested is that that the prevalence of herbivory damage on purple loosestrife is low during the invasion phase and increases throughout the saturation phase. Historical trends suggest a gradual increase in hole feeding and margin feeding damage from 1883 to around 1940, followed by a period of relative stability. The percentage of specimens with window feeding damage did not begin to increase until the end of the twentieth century, from 3% (2–6%) in 1990 to 45% (14–81%) in 2015. Temporal changes in the frequency of window feeding damage support the hypothesis of an increasing herbivory pressure by recently introduced insects. This study shows that leaf damage made by insects introduced for the biocontrol of purple loosestrife, such as coleopterans of the Neogalerucella genus, can be assessed from voucher specimens. Herbaria are a rich source in information that can be used to answer questions related to plant-insect interactions in the context of biological invasions and biodiversity changes. This article is part of the theme issue ‘Biological collections for understanding biodiversity in the Anthropocene’.

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