1. Plant diversity loss can alter higher trophic-level communities via non-random species interactions, which in turn may cascade to affect key ecosystem functions. These non-random linkages might be best captured by patterns of phylogenetic diversity, which take into account co-evolutionary dependencies. However, lack of adequate phylogenetic data of higher trophic levels hampers our mechanistic understanding of biodiversity relationships in species-rich ecosystems.2. We used DNA barcoding to generate data on the phylogenetic diversity of lepidopteran caterpillars in a large-scale forest biodiversity experiment in subtropical China. We analysed how different metrics of lepidopteran phylogenetic diversity (Faith's PD, MPD, MNTD) and taxonomic diversity were influenced by multiple components of tree diversity (taxonomic, functional, phylogenetic). 3. Our data from six sampling periods represent 7,204 mitochondrial cytochrome c oxidase subunit I (COI) sequences of lepidopteran larvae, clustered into 461 molecular operational taxonomic units. Lepidopteran abundance, the effective number of species (irrespective of the focus on rare or common species) and Faith's PD and MPD (reflecting basal evolutionary splits), but not MNTD (reflecting recent evolutionary splits), significantly increased with experimentally manipulated | 2709 Journal of Ecology WANG et Al.
The mechanisms driving species co-occurrence are varied and include biotic interactions, abiotic factors, and scale-dependent processes. Based on a comprehensive dataset of lepidopteran herbivores recorded from a large-scale forest biodiversity experiment, we tested the contribution to herbivore species co-occurrence of herbivore phylogenetic relatedness, plant diversity and functional traits, and spatial scale. We found that Lepidoptera cooccurrence was negatively associated with their phylogenetic relatedness, tree diversity, and defensive traits, but positively associated with nutritional functional traits. Furthermore, species co-occurrence was higher at larger spatial scales (tree species or plot) than at smaller scale (individual trees). Our results provide evidence supporting both environmental filtering and competition exclusion hypotheses, and highlight the significance of functionality in shaping species coexistence of herbivores in plant-arthropod systems.
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