scholarly journals High richness of insect herbivory from the early Miocene Hindon Maar crater, Otago, New Zealand

PeerJ ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 5 ◽  
pp. e2985 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anna Lena Möller ◽  
Uwe Kaulfuss ◽  
Daphne E. Lee ◽  
Torsten Wappler
Keyword(s):  
New Zealand ◽  
Insect Herbivory ◽  
Terrestrial Ecosystems ◽  
Leaf Damage ◽  
Early Miocene ◽  
Functional Feeding Groups ◽  
Insect Damage ◽  
Southern Beech ◽  
The Antarctic ◽  
Damage Types

Plants and insects are key components of terrestrial ecosystems and insect herbivory is the most important type of interaction in these ecosystems. This study presents the first analysis of associations between plants and insects for the early Miocene Hindon Maar fossil lagerstätte, Otago, New Zealand. A total of 584 fossil angiosperm leaves representing 24 morphotypes were examined to determine the presence or absence of insect damage types. Of these leaves, 73% show signs of insect damage; they comprise 821 occurrences of damage from 87 damage types representing all eight functional feeding groups. In comparison to other fossil localities, the Hindon leaves display a high abundance of insect damage and a high diversity of damage types. Leaves ofNothofagus(southern beech), the dominant angiosperm in the fossil assemblage, exhibit a similar leaf damage pattern to leaves from the nearby mid to late Miocene Dunedin Volcano Group sites but display a more diverse spectrum and much higher percentage of herbivory damage than a comparable dataset of leaves from Palaeocene and Eocene sites in the Antarctic Peninsula.

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.

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.

A Large Fruit Pigeon (Columbidae) from the Early Miocene of New Zealand

The Auk ◽  
2009 ◽  
Vol 126 (3) ◽  
pp. 649-656 ◽  
Author(s):  
Trevor H. Worthy ◽  
Suzanne J. Hand ◽  
Jennifer P. Worthy ◽  
Alan J. D. Tennyson ◽  
R. Paul Scofield
Keyword(s):  
New Zealand ◽  
Early Miocene

A fossilFuchsia(Onagraceae) flower and an anther mass with in situ pollen from the early Miocene of New Zealand

2013 ◽  
Vol 100 (10) ◽  
pp. 2052-2065 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daphne E. Lee ◽  
John G. Conran ◽  
Jennifer M. Bannister ◽  
Uwe Kaulfuss ◽  
Dallas C. Mildenhall
Keyword(s):  
New Zealand ◽  
Early Miocene

The search for an alternative strategy: New Zealand and the Antarctic

1983 ◽  
Vol 72 (288) ◽  
pp. 466-472 ◽  
Author(s):  
Laurie Barber ◽  
Michael Selby
Keyword(s):  
New Zealand ◽  
Alternative Strategy ◽  
The Antarctic

Antarctic glaciation recorded in Early Miocene New Zealand foraminifera

2012 ◽  
Vol 92-93 ◽  
pp. 52-60 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kenichi Fukuda ◽  
Daniel B. Thomas ◽  
Russell D. Frew ◽  
R. Ewan Fordyce
Keyword(s):  
New Zealand ◽  
Early Miocene

Melampsora medusae. [Descriptions of Fungi and Bacteria].

1975 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. Walker
Keyword(s):  
New Zealand ◽  
Geographical Distribution ◽  
Northern Hemisphere ◽  
Populus Deltoides ◽  
Leaf Damage ◽  
Main Method ◽  
Melampsora Medusae ◽  
Nursery Stock ◽  
Eastern Australia ◽  
Incremental Growth

Abstract A description is provided for Melampsora medusae. Information is included on the disease caused by the organism, its transmission, geographical distribution, and hosts. HOSTS: Pycnia and aecia on Coniferae, especially Larix and Pseudotsuga, less commonly on Pinus and other genera (Ziller, 1965). Uredinia and telia on species of Populus, especially Populus deltoides, and its varieties and hybrids P. balsamifera, P. nigra var. italica and others. Its exact host range on species of Populus is not known due to confusion with other species of Melampsora and to uncertainty in the reported identity of some species of Populus and clones (Walker, Hartigan & Bertus, 1974). DISEASE: Leaf rust of poplars, causing severe leaf damage and early defoliation on susceptible species and clones. Continued defoliation of successive flushes of growth predisposes trees to winter injury and dieback (Peace, 1962) and can cause death of trees, especially nursery stock and trees 1-2 yr old (25, 204; 47, 241; Walker Haitigan & Bertus, 1974). Reduction in incremental growth of timber occurs with susceptible varieties. Some damage can occur to the conifer hosts. It is often severe on Pseudotsuga menziesii (45, 459; 47, 126) and in nurseries Pinus spp. and Larix spp. can be heavily attacked (Ziller, 1965). GEOGRAPHICAL DISTRIBUTION: North America (Canada, USA), Asia (Japan); Australasia and Oceania (Australia, New Zealand); Europe (France, Spain). Reports of Melampsora spp. on poplars (including P. deltoides and P. canadensis) from South America (Argentina, 21, 173), Uruguay (Lindquist & de Rosengurtt, 1967) may refer in part to M. medusae. TRANSMISSION: By air-borne urediniospores, often over long distances (suspected from eastern Australia to New Zealand). Urediniospores survive the winter in milder climates on semi-evergreen lines and on green sucker growth of deciduous trees. This is probably the main method of overwintering in the Southern Hemisphere and in warmer parts of the Northern Hemisphere. The possibility of bud carryover as occurs with M. epitea on Salix in Iceland (Jorstad, 1951) and the Canadian Arctic (Savile, 1972) should be investigated. Telia survive the winter and basidiospores formed in spring infect susceptible conifers in parts of the Northern Hemisphere (Ziller, 1965) but no conifer infection has so far been found in Australia.

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