Abstract
Plant-herbivore interactions are important for almost all terrestrial ecosystems, but little is known about how herbivory and the specialization of these interactions change with the resource availability provided by host plant communities and time since disturbance. In fire-prone scrublands of the South African Cape Floristic Region, we studied interaction networks between 20 Protea shrub species and ten herbivorous insect species that consume seeds inside Protea cones during their larval stage. We studied these interactions at 18 sites that differed widely in plant resource availability (protea cone mass per hectare) and time since the last fire event. We sampled 1173 protea cones, identified the herbivores in each cone, and calculated herbivory rate (the proportion of infested cones), herbivore diversity (herbivore species richness and Shannon diversity), the number of host plant species per herbivore species (insect generality), the number of herbivore species per host plant species (plant vulnerability), as well as niche overlap among insect and plant species for each site. We found that most herbivore species interacted with the majority of Protea species. Herbivory rate and herbivore diversity were not affected by site-level resource availability or time since fire. Surprisingly, specialization of plant-herbivore interactions at the community level was independent of the environmental gradients studied, suggesting that the mechanisms structuring the interactions in this plant-herbivore system were independent of the environmental context. This finding suggests coupled community dynamics of protea plants and the insect herbivores feeding inside their cones in South African fynbos ecosystems.
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Claims 3
Claim · model-written summary
Herbivory rate and herbivore diversity were not affected by site-level resource availability or time since fire.
- Treatment
- site-level resource availability or time since firee2
- Interactor
- herbivorous insect speciese1herbivore
- Outcome
- Herbivory rate and herbivore diversitye2
- Direction
- not affectede2
ProteaOrganisms pictured · Representative pictures of the matched species, not figures from the paper.
Verbatim
e1“interaction networks between 20 Protea shrub species and ten herbivorous insect species”
e2“Herbivory rate and herbivore diversity were not affected by site-level resource availability or time since fire”
Claim · model-written summary
Most herbivore species interacted with the majority of Protea species.
Organisms pictured · Representative pictures of the matched species, not figures from the paper.
Verbatim
e1“interaction networks between 20 Protea shrub species and ten herbivorous insect species”
e3“We found that most herbivore species interacted with the majority of Protea species”
Claim · model-written summary
Specialization of plant-herbivore interactions at the community level was independent of the environmental gradients studied.
- Treatment
- environmental gradients studiede4
- Outcome
- specialization of plant-herbivore interactions at the community levele4
- Direction
- independent ofe4
Organisms pictured · Representative pictures of the matched species, not figures from the paper.
Verbatim
e1“interaction networks between 20 Protea shrub species and ten herbivorous insect species”
e4“specialization of plant-herbivore interactions at the community level was independent of the environmental gradients studied”