Foliar herbivory and leaf traits of five native tree species in a young plantation of Central Panama

Paul, Gillian S.; Montagnini, Florencia; Berlyn, Graeme P.; Craven, Dylan; Breugel, Michiel van; Hall, Jefferson S.

doi:10.1007/s11056-011-9267-7

Cited by 30 publications

(22 citation statements)

References 45 publications

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“…Leaf damage in tropical forests ranged from 11% for shade tolerant to 14% for tropical dry forest trees in a meta-study comprising many different tree species (Coley and Barone 1996), and in savannas from 15 to nearly 0% across 25 adult-size tree species in Brazil (Marquis et al 2001) and from 9 to 3% across 9 tree species from the sapling-stage size class in Ivory Coast (Unsicker and Mody 2005). Previous studies reporting herbivore damage specifically for T. rosea grown in Panamanian plantations may have underestimated herbivory, with 3% leaf damage in 1-yearold monocultures (Paul et al 2011) and 9% in unprotected 2-year-old mixed stands (Plath et al 2011b). Both studies quantified damage earlier in the season than the current study, which is the first to assess the key herbivores and their temporal abundance patterns (see Electronic Supplementary Material 2 for temporal abundance patterns).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 93%

Associational resistance and associational susceptibility: specialist herbivores show contrasting responses to tree stand diversification

et al. 2011

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Heterospecific neighbors may reduce damage to a focal plant by lowering specialist herbivore loads (associational resistance hypothesis), or enhance damage by increasing generalist herbivore loads (associational susceptibility hypothesis). We tested the associational effects of tree diversity on herbivory patterns of the tropical focal tree Tabebuia rosea in an experimental plantation setup, which contained tree monocultures and mixed stands. We found higher herbivore damage to T. rosea at higher tree diversity, indicating that T. rosea did not benefit from associational resistance but rather experienced associational susceptibility. The specific consideration of the two dominant insect herbivore species of T. rosea, the specialist chrysomelid Walterianella inscripta and the specialist pyralid Eulepte gastralis, facilitated understanding of the detected damage patterns. Tree diversity exerted opposite effects on tree infestation by the two herbivores. These findings point to resource concentration effects for the chrysomelid beetle (favored by tree monoculture) and to resource dilution effects for the pyralid caterpillar (favored by tree mixture) as underlying mechanisms of herbivore distribution. A strong contribution of the pyralid to overall damage patterns in diversified stands suggests that associational susceptibility may not necessarily be related to higher abundances of generalist herbivores but may also result from specialized herbivores affected by resource dilution effects. Thus, the identity and biology of herbivore species has to be taken into account when attempting to predict damage patterns in forest ecosystems.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 93%

Associational resistance and associational susceptibility: specialist herbivores show contrasting responses to tree stand diversification

et al. 2011

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“…This preferential exploration of the effects of miners on leaf abscission can be classified as a research bias because in natural ecosystems, the average background damage imposed by defoliators is more than 10 times as high as the damage caused by miners (Nuckols & Connor ; Paul et al . ). In our opinion, this bias can be explained in two ways.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 97%

“…The majority of studies on the effects of natural herbivory on leaf life span have been conducted with leaf miners: these insects account for 65% of the guild-specific data in our meta-analysis, compared with 12% on defoliators. This preferential exploration of the effects of miners on leaf abscission can be classified as a research bias because in natural ecosystems, the average background damage imposed by defoliators is more than 10 times as high as the damage caused by miners (Nuckols & Connor 1995;Paul et al 2012). In our opinion, this bias can be explained in two ways.…”

Section: A R I a T I O N I N T H E E F F E C T S O F I N S E C T H mentioning

confidence: 96%

Effects of herbivory on leaf life span in woody plants: a meta‐analysis

Zvereva

Kozlov

2014

Journal of Ecology

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Summary1. Premature abscission of leaves damaged by herbivores can increase the degree of defoliation beyond that imposed directly by insect feeding. Our aim was to explore the general patterns and sources of variation in the effects of insect herbivory on leaf life span in woody plants.2. Meta-analysis of published data demonstrated that herbivory significantly reduced the life span of damaged leaves; insect feeding had a greater effect than the same level of herbivory simulated by mechanical wounding. The effects of both natural and simulated herbivory became stronger with increase in the proportion of damaged leaf area. Damage to young leaves and to plant species with higher specific leaf area resulted in a greater reduction in leaf life span than damage to mature leaves and to species with lower specific leaf area. 3. Herbivores differed in the magnitude of their effects on leaf life span, but this variation was not explained by herbivore feeding guilds or specialization. 4. Natural herbivory similarly reduced leaf life span in deciduous and evergreen trees, thereby questioning the hypothesis that premature abscission as a defence response is primarily a characteristic of evergreen trees. However, simulated herbivory imposed stronger effects on evergreens, suggesting that they are more sensitive to non-specific wound-induced elicitors than deciduous trees. 5. Synthesis. We demonstrated that, in spite of pronounced variation between study systems, herbivory in general reduces the life span of the damaged leaves of woody plants. Our results suggest that variability in plant responses to herbivory may be linked with the leaf economic spectrum. Premature abscission of damaged leaves can be seen as a tolerance strategy that reduces the negative consequences of local damage on the whole plant. This phenomenon should be accounted for in estimation of losses of net primary production caused by herbivory.

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“…At the moment of the excavation, (2008) and Paul et al (2012) trees were ten years old (DBH ranged between 10.1 to 19.8 cm in the plantation depending on the species). Soil particles were removed while leaving the roots intact to determine root orders for each species based on the classification proposed by Pregitzer et al (2002).…”

Section: Experimental Designmentioning

confidence: 99%

Root quality and decomposition environment, but not tree species richness, drive root decomposition in tropical forests

et al. 2016

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Background and aims Tropical forests contribute significantly to the global carbon cycle, yet the relative importance of tree diversity on key ecosystem processes such as root decomposition remains unknown.Methods We examined the influence of tree species richness on root decomposition over 485 days at two sites in Panama with contrasting soil fertility. Diversity effects on decomposition rates were calculated where 1) overstory tree species richness and composition matched that occurring inside root decomposition bags and 2) where roots of contrasting species richness decomposed under a common tree overstory. In addition, we tested 27 root traits to identify those that contribute to predict root decomposition in tropical forests. Results Tree species richness did not affect root decomposition rates, neither when species were manipulated within bags nor with varying tree overstory richness. Root carbon quality and micronutrient concentrations such as manganese explained 47 and 81 % of the variation in decomposition rates in the fertile and infertile site, respectively, demonstrating that the relative importance of traits was modulated by the soil environment. Conclusions Our results suggest that root decomposition in tropical forests is mediated by root functional composition and the soil environment rather than by species richness.

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Foliar herbivory and leaf traits of five native tree species in a young plantation of Central Panama

Cited by 30 publications

References 45 publications

Associational resistance and associational susceptibility: specialist herbivores show contrasting responses to tree stand diversification

Associational resistance and associational susceptibility: specialist herbivores show contrasting responses to tree stand diversification

Effects of herbivory on leaf life span in woody plants: a meta‐analysis

Root quality and decomposition environment, but not tree species richness, drive root decomposition in tropical forests

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