Feeding Records of Costa Rican Leaf Beetles (Coleoptera: Chrysomelidae)

Flowers, R. Wills; Janzen, Daniel H.

doi:10.2307/3495768

Cited by 40 publications

(68 citation statements)

References 15 publications

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“…curvispinosa-10. The herbivores consisted of the tortoise beetles Ischnocodia annulus (Fabricius) (Chrysomelidae) and Coptocycla leprosa (Boheman) (Chrysomelidae); both are known Cordia feeders (Noguera 1988;Windsor et al 1992;Flowers and Janzen 1997), and are very common at this site. A total of eight herbivores were collected for analysis from the same trees as the ants when possible, or from adjacent Cordia alliodora trees when necessary.…”

Section: Stable Isotope Analysismentioning

confidence: 99%

Friend or foe? A behavioral and stable isotopic investigation of an ant–plant symbiosis

Tillberg

2004

Oecologia

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In ant-plant symbioses, the behavior of ant inhabitants affects the nature of the interaction, ranging from mutualism to parasitism. Mutualistic species confer a benefit to the plant, while parasites reap the benefits of the interaction without reciprocating, potentially resulting in a negative impact on the host plant. Using the ant-plant symbiosis between Cordia alliodora and its ant inhabitants as a model system, I examine the costs and benefits of habitation by the four most common ant inhabitants at La Selva Biological Station, Costa Rica. Costs are measured by counting coccoids associated with each ant species. Benefits include patrolling behavior, effectiveness at locating resources, and recruitment response. I also compare the diets of the four ant species using stable isotope analysis of nitrogen (N) and carbon (C). Ants varied in their rates of association with coccoids, performance of beneficial behaviors, and diet. These differences in cost, benefit, and diet among the ant species suggest differences in the nature of the symbiotic relationship between C. alliodora and its ants. Two of the ant species behave in a mutualistic manner, while the other two ant species appear to be parasites of the mutualism. I determined that the mutualistic ants feed at a higher trophic level than the parasitic ants. Behavioral and dietary evidence indicate the protective role of the mutualists, and suggest that the parasitic ants do not protect the plant by consuming herbivores.

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Section: Stable Isotope Analysismentioning

confidence: 99%

Friend or foe? A behavioral and stable isotopic investigation of an ant–plant symbiosis

Tillberg

2004

Oecologia

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“…Almost all information on the host plants of tropical herbivores comes from local community studies on selected plant species (table 1), while even incomplete regional host plant lists are available for only a few taxa (e.g. Fiedler 1995;Flowers & Janzen 1997). By contrast, regional host plant lists for temperate herbivores, detailed particularly for Great Britain and central Europe, have been compiled for over two centuries, while quantitative community studies that include feeding experiments and rearing of larvae (e.g.…”

Section: Host Specificity In Herbivorous Guilds and Communitiesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Host specificity of insect herbivores in tropical forests

2005

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Studies of host specificity in tropical insect herbivores are evolving from a focus on insect distribution data obtained by canopy fogging and other mass collecting methods, to a focus on obtaining data on insect rearing and experimentally verified feeding patterns. We review this transition and identify persisting methodological problems. Replicated quantitative surveys of plant-herbivore food webs, based on sampling efforts of an order of magnitude greater than is customary at present, may be cost-effectively achieved by small research teams supported by local assistants. Survey designs that separate historical and ecological determinants of host specificity by studying herbivores feeding on the same plant species exposed to different environmental or experimental conditions are rare. Further, we advocate the use of host-specificity measures based on plant phylogeny. Existing data suggest that a minority of species in herbivore communities feed on a single plant species when alternative congeneric hosts are available. Thus, host plant range limits tend to coincide with those of plant genera, rather than species or suprageneric taxa. Host specificity among tropical herbivore guilds decreases in the sequence: granivoresO leaf-minersOfructivoresOleaf-chewersZsap-suckersOxylophagesOroot-feeders, thus paralleling patterns observed in temperate forests. Differences in host specificity between temperate and tropical forests are difficult to assess since data on tropical herbivores originate from recent field studies, whereas their temperate counterparts derive from regional host species lists, assembled over many years. No major increase in host specificity from temperate to tropical communities is evident. This conclusion, together with the recent downward revisions of extremely high estimates of tropical species richness, suggest that tropical ecosystems may not be as biodiverse as previously thought.

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“…Rare species always constitute a major proportion of species in samples, and they may differ from common ones regarding patterns of host specificity (Price et al 1995). Therefore, also host observations attended with lower level of confidence were included and determined by probability assessments based on abundance categories (Flowers and Janzen 1997;Ødegaard 2000b). These host occurrences were assigned to the following categories according to the number of individual records from the assumed host plant; h2: 10 or more records; h3: 5-9 records; h4: 2-4 record; h5: 1 record and additional evidence for host association based of collections or literature.…”

Section: Host Observationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Host Specificity, Alpha- and Beta-Diversity of Phytophagous Beetles in Two Tropical Forests in Panama

Ødegaard

2006

Biodivers Conserv

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Abstract. Species diversity, host specificity and species turnover among phytophagous beetles were studied in the canopy of two tropical lowland forests in Panama with the use of canopy cranes. A sharp rainfall gradient occurs between the two sites located 80 km apart. The wetter forest is located in San Lorenzo Protected Area on the Caribbean side of the isthmus, and the drier forest is a part of the Parque Natural Metropolitano close to Panama City on the Pacific slope. Host specificity was measured as effective specialization and recorded by probability methods based on abundance categories and feeding records from a total of 102 species of trees and lianas equally distributed between the two sites. The total material collected included more than 65,000 beetles of 2462 species, of which 306 species were shared between the two sites. The wet forest was 37% more species rich than the dry forest due to more saproxylic species and flower visitors. Saproxylic species and flower visitors were also more host-specific in the wet forest. Leaf chewers showed similar levels of species richness and host specificity in both forests. The effective number of specialized species per plant species was higher in the wet forest. Higher levels of local alpha-and beta-diversity as well as host specificity based on present data from a tropical wet forest, suggests higher number of species at regional levels, a result that may have consequences for ecological estimates of global species richness.

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Feeding Records of Costa Rican Leaf Beetles (Coleoptera: Chrysomelidae)

Cited by 40 publications

References 15 publications

Friend or foe? A behavioral and stable isotopic investigation of an ant–plant symbiosis

Friend or foe? A behavioral and stable isotopic investigation of an ant–plant symbiosis

Host specificity of insect herbivores in tropical forests

Host Specificity, Alpha- and Beta-Diversity of Phytophagous Beetles in Two Tropical Forests in Panama

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