Why Are There So Many Species of Herbivorous Insects in Tropical Rainforests?

@article{citeulike:820106, abstract = {Despite recent progress in understanding mechanisms of tree species coexistence in tropical forests, a simple explanation for the even more extensive diversity of insects feeding on these plants has been missing. We compared folivorous insects from temperate and tropical trees to test the hypothesis that herbivore species coexistence in more diverse communities could reflect narrow host specificity relative to less diverse communities. Temperate and tropical tree species of comparable phylogenetic distribution supported similar numbers of folivorous insect species, 29.0 {+/-} 2.2 and 23.5 {+/-} 1.8 per 100 square meters of foliage, respectively. Host specificity did not differ significantly between community samples, indicating that food resources are not more finely partitioned among folivorous insects in tropical than in temperate forests. These findings suggest that the latitudinal gradient in insect species richness could be a direct function of plant diversity, which increased sevenfold from our temperate to tropical study sites. 10.1126/science.1129237}, author = {Novotny, Vojtech and Drozd, Pavel and Miller, Scott E. and Kulfan, Miroslav and Janda, Milan and Basset, Yves and Weiblen, George D. }, citeulike-article-id = {820106}, doi = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1126/science.1129237}, journal = {Science}, keywords = {evolution-paleo, extinction-recovery, paleoecology}, month = {August}, number = {5790}, pages = {1115--1118}, posted-at = {2006-08-28 19:46:27}, priority = {2}, title = {Why Are There So Many Species of Herbivorous Insects in Tropical Rainforests?}, url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1126/science.1129237}, volume = {313}, year = {2006} }

TY - JOUR ID - citeulike:820106 L3 - citeulike-article-id:820106 TI - Why Are There So Many Species of Herbivorous Insects in Tropical Rainforests? JF - Science VL - 313 IS - 5790 SP - 1115 EP - 1118 N2 - Despite recent progress in understanding mechanisms of tree species coexistence in tropical forests, a simple explanation for the even more extensive diversity of insects feeding on these plants has been missing. We compared folivorous insects from temperate and tropical trees to test the hypothesis that herbivore species coexistence in more diverse communities could reflect narrow host specificity relative to less diverse communities. Temperate and tropical tree species of comparable phylogenetic distribution supported similar numbers of folivorous insect species, 29.0 {+/-} 2.2 and 23.5 {+/-} 1.8 per 100 square meters of foliage, respectively. Host specificity did not differ significantly between community samples, indicating that food resources are not more finely partitioned among folivorous insects in tropical than in temperate forests. These findings suggest that the latitudinal gradient in insect species richness could be a direct function of plant diversity, which increased sevenfold from our temperate to tropical study sites. 10.1126/science.1129237 KW - evolution-paleo KW - extinction-recovery KW - paleoecology AU - Novotny, Vojtech AU - Drozd, Pavel AU - Miller, Scott AU - Kulfan, Miroslav AU - Janda, Milan AU - Basset, Yves AU - Weiblen, George PY - 2006/08/25/ UR - http://dx.doi.org/10.1126/science.1129237 ER -