Importance of interaction rewiring in determining spatial and temporal turnover of tritrophic (Piper‐caterpillar‐parasitoid) metanetworks in the Yucatán Península, México

Abstract

Natural history studies documenting spatial and temporal variation of species assemblages and their interactions are critical for understanding biodiversity and community ecology. We characterized caterpillar-parasitoid assemblages on shrubs in the genus Piper across remnants of semi-evergreen forest in the Yucatán Península during the rainy and rainy-dry seasons. We collected caterpillars feeding on Piper leaves and reared them to adults or parasitoids to: (i) describe tritrophic interactions between Piper, caterpillars, and parasitoids, (ii) compare empirical metanetworks among sites and seasons, and (iii) investigate patterns in species and interaction turnover across spatial and temporal scales to understand the contribution of species composition and interaction rewiring to overall interaction turnover. We found six Piper species supporting 79 species of caterpillars, which in turn hosted 20 species of parasitoids.In total, there were 116 realized trophic interactions. Species and interactions exhibited substantial turnover at temporal and spatial scales. Total interaction turnover was more pronounced across seasons in all sites (>93%), than it was between sites (<91%). We also found that interaction rewiring contributed more to overall interaction turnover than species turnover. The spatial and temporal variation in metanetworks documented here contribute to understanding fine-scale temporal and spatial turnover in tropical species and interactions and raise important questions about the lability of consumer specialization and the short-term effects of interaction rewiring on the stability of biotic communities. Our results highlight the importance of tropical food web studies that are based on natural history using consistent field methods to document bi-and tripartite interactions.

Variation in the strength of local and regional determinants of herbivory across the Neotropics

“…Piper species may be near their range limits in the seasonal forests we studied and therefore host fewer specialized herbivores and suffer lower herbivory (Anstett et al 2016). Within a forest, herbivore occurrence, plant–herbivore–parasitoid networks, and the relative abundance of generalists and specialists on Piper change seasonally (Cosmo et al 2019, Campos‐Moreno et al 2021; Massad et al unpubl.). Our data were not collected across multiple seasons at all sites, but Piper leaves are long‐lived, and specialist Eois are often found feeding on mature leaves (Massad et al unpubl.).…”

Modern approaches for leveraging biodiversity collections to understand change in plant-insect interactions

“…In this time of well-documented declines in pollinators, there is a clear need for innovative methods for studying plantpollinator interaction networks using museum collections (Potts et al, 2010;Burkle et al, 2013). Species interactions, and their impact on community structure, and ultimately, ecosystem functioning, can be explored through better-informed network methods, which can help us to describe spatial and temporal changes in these dynamics (Burkle and Alarcón, 2011;Campos-Moreno et al, 2021). For example, many specialist pollinators are more susceptible to declines as their more restricted niches provide less redundancy in resource availability (Weiner et al, 2014).…”

Spatio‐temporal variation in plant–pollinator interactions: a multilayer network approach

“…Such variation can be quantified using the network dissimilarity framework (i.e. differences in interactions between networks originate from both species and interaction turnover) proposed by Poisot et al (2012), which allows for comparisons of ecological communities across space and time (Pellissier et al 2018, Campos‐Moreno et al 2021). Spatial and temporal network dissimilarity in plant–pollinator interactions may be influenced by species turnover, as species can differ in their distribution and phenology across both space and time.…”

“…Moreover, there are virtually no studies that have replicated monitoring of interacting species across space and time (Magrach et al 2022). An increasing number of ecological networks have explored spatial or temporal variation by comparing static 'snapshots' (each snapshot is considered a 'layer') of species assemblages and the interactions they establish (Chacoff et al 2018, Souza et al 2018, Rabeling et al 2019, Campos-Moreno et al 2021. Ecological multilayer networks, however, consist of several networks (i.e.…”