Specialist versus generalist insect herbivores and plant defense

Ali, Jared G.; Agrawal, Anurag A.

doi:10.1016/j.tplants.2012.02.006

Cited by 690 publications

(684 citation statements)

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“…For example, a bitrophic explanation argues that specialist and generalist herbivores have different direct effects on plants (e.g., increased damage from more specialized herbivore fauna; ref. 36). The significant effect of proportion S on damage did not hold for bird-excluded branches alone (R 2 = 0.15, P = 0.34; PIC, R 2 = 0.29, P = 0.17), indicating that any direct effect of herbivore assemblage diet breadth on plant damage was not responsible for the pattern we observed.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 63%

Herbivore diet breadth mediates the cascading effects of carnivores in food webs

Singer

Lichter‐Marck

Farkas

et al. 2014

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

113

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Predicting the impact of carnivores on plants has challenged community and food web ecologists for decades. At the same time, the role of predators in the evolution of herbivore dietary specialization has been an unresolved issue in evolutionary ecology. Here, we integrate these perspectives by testing the role of herbivore diet breadth as a predictor of top-down effects of avian predators on herbivores and plants in a forest food web. Using experimental bird exclosures to study a complex community of trees, caterpillars, and birds, we found a robust positive association between caterpillar diet breadth (phylodiversity of host plants used) and the strength of bird predation across 41 caterpillar and eight tree species. Dietary specialization was associated with increased enemy-free space for both camouflaged (n = 33) and warningly signaled (n = 8) caterpillar species. Furthermore, dietary specialization was associated with increased crypsis (camouflaged species only) and more stereotyped resting poses (camouflaged and warningly signaled species), but was unrelated to caterpillar body size. These dynamics in turn cascaded down to plants: a metaanalysis (n = 15 tree species) showed the beneficial effect of birds on trees (i.e., reduced leaf damage) decreased with the proportion of dietary specialist taxa composing a tree species' herbivore fauna. We conclude that herbivore diet breadth is a key functional trait underlying the trophic effects of carnivores on both herbivores and plants.ecological specialization | host specificity | plant-herbivore interactions | tritrophic interactions | trophic cascade P redicting the strength of trophic interactions is a major goal in ecology. Because most natural ecosystems contain numerous coexisting species at each trophic level, achieving this goal necessarily involves the integration of theory in evolutionary, community, and food web ecology. In this context, evolutionary ecology explains how traits of organisms adapt them to a fundamental trade-off between resource acquisition and mortality risk from natural enemies (1, 2); community ecology theory links the many patterns and consequences of species interactions to the diversity of traits of those species (2); and food web ecology subsumes this diversity into patterns of trophic structure and dynamics, such as a trophic cascade (3). The recognition that functional traits of species can drive the indirect positive effect of carnivores on plant biomass [trophic cascades broadly defined (4, 5)] provides important insight into the causes of variation in these dynamics (1,6). An emerging understanding of the functional traits mediating trophic cascade strength includes traits of herbivores that facilitate predator avoidance (7-10), or provide constitutive (11, 12) or induced resistance to predation (13). These examples identify antipredator traits of herbivores as an important mediator of top-down effects on plants within individual tritrophic food chains. However, the role of antipredator (or other) traits of herbivores is curr...

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Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 63%

Herbivore diet breadth mediates the cascading effects of carnivores in food webs

Singer

Lichter‐Marck

Farkas

et al. 2014

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

113

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“…In the case of Spiraea tomentosa, plants were not protected against damage by E. clorana, despite their high concentration of defence compounds (soluble phenols and condensed tannins). According to the general hypothesis that insect specialists, which include E. clorana, are better able to withstand the presence of repellents than are generalists (Mathur et al 2011;Ali and Agrawal 2012), it is possible that even the high concentration of defence compounds in Spiraea tomentosa leaves did not act as a sufficient barrier to E. clorana. Paradoxically, these compounds may be beneficial for an insect, as larvae sequester plant-derived compounds and the defensive traits of caterpillars are correlated with the defensive traits of their hosts (Bowers 1990;Wheeler et al 2002).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Invasive Spiraea tomentosa: a new host for monophagous Earias clorana?

Wiatrowska

Łukowski

Karolewski

et al. 2018

Arthropod-Plant Interactions

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The introduction of alien species can have a significant impact on the food preferences of native phytophagous insects. The moth Earias clorana L. has previously been considered to be monophagous, ingesting only plants in the genus Salix. In recent years, we have observed larval E. clorana feeding on Spiraea tomentosa L., an invasive shrub species in Central Europe that is native to North America. We hypothesised that this insect can feed on Spiraea tomentosa leaves with no negative effects on its growth and development, and that the leaves of Spiraea tomentosa as a source of food for E. clorana are equally as good as leaves of Salix viminalis L. Our results showed that despite significant differences in the chemical composition of the studied species' leaves, including a much higher concentration of defence compounds (total soluble phenols and condensed tannins) in Spiraea tomentosa leaves than in those of Salix viminalis, feeding on a new host plant did not significantly affect the survival of larvae. The change in host plant had an unfavourable effect, however, on several parameters of growth and development for the larvae (masses of larvae and pupae, relative growth rates, and efficiency of conversion of ingested food). We conclude that, in comparison to Salix viminalis, Spiraea tomentosa is not a particularly favourable food for larval development. Perhaps, even without direct improvements in adult foraging efficiency, however, the costs of switching hosts may be minimised in larvae that develop on very abundant, invasive species, such as Spiraea tomentosa in Central Europe.

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“…The induction of Bo-Pr1 at later time points suggest that there could be a shift to an enhanced pathogen defenses by CL frass in cabbage over time. (Ali and Agrawal 2012;Pashley 1986). We have shown that frass proteins from FAW caterpillars fed on maize trigger a pathogen defense response when they deposit their frass in the enclosed feeding sites of the whorls .…”

Section: Cabbage Looper Frass Triggers An Oscillating Pattern Of Herbmentioning

confidence: 99%

Lessons from the Far End: Caterpillar FRASS-Induced Defenses in Maize, Rice, Cabbage, and Tomato

et al. 2016

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Specialist versus generalist insect herbivores and plant defense

Cited by 690 publications

References 69 publications

Herbivore diet breadth mediates the cascading effects of carnivores in food webs

Herbivore diet breadth mediates the cascading effects of carnivores in food webs

Invasive Spiraea tomentosa: a new host for monophagous Earias clorana?

Lessons from the Far End: Caterpillar FRASS-Induced Defenses in Maize, Rice, Cabbage, and Tomato

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