Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item:
http://dx.doi.org/10.25673/110462
Title: | Leaf nutritional content, tree richness, and season shape the caterpillar functional trait composition hosted by trees |
Author(s): | Anttonen, Perttu Li, Yi Chesters, Douglas Davrinche, Andréa Marie Haider, Sylvia Simone Rebekka Bruelheide, Helge Chen, Jing-Ting Wang, Ming-Qiang Ma, Keping Zhu, Chao-Dong Schuldt, Andreas |
Issue Date: | 2022 |
Type: | Article |
Language: | English |
Abstract: | Nutritional content of host plants is expected to drive caterpillar species assemblages and their trait composition. These relationships are altered by tree richness-induced neighborhood variation and a seasonal decline in leaf quality. We tested how key functional traits related to the growth and defenses of the average caterpillar hosted by a tree species are shaped by nutritional host quality. We measured morphological traits and estimated plant community-level diet breadth based on occurrences from 1020 caterpillars representing 146 species in a subtropical tree diversity experiment from spring to autumn in one year. We focused on interspecific caterpillar trait variation by analyzing presence-only patterns of caterpillar species for each tree species. Our results show that tree richness positively affected caterpillar species-sharing among tree species, which resulted in lowered trait variation and led to higher caterpillar richness for each tree species. However, community-level diet breadth depended more on the nutritional content of host trees. Higher nutritional quality also supported species-poorer but more abundant communities of smaller and less well-defended caterpillars. This study demonstrates that the leaf nutritional quality of trees shapes caterpillar trait composition across diverse species assemblages at fine spatial scales in a way that can be predicted by ecological theory. |
URI: | https://opendata.uni-halle.de//handle/1981185920/112417 http://dx.doi.org/10.25673/110462 |
Open Access: | Open access publication |
License: | (CC BY 4.0) Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 |
Journal Title: | Insects |
Publisher: | MDPI |
Publisher Place: | Basel |
Volume: | 13 |
Issue: | 12 |
Original Publication: | 10.3390/insects13121100 |
Page Start: | 1 |
Page End: | 21 |
Appears in Collections: | Open Access Publikationen der MLU |
Files in This Item:
File | Description | Size | Format | |
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insects-13-01100-v2.pdf | 1.65 MB | Adobe PDF | View/Open |