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No Indication of High Host-Plant Specificity in Afrotropical Geometrid Moths

Specificity is one of the fundamental concepts in ecology. Host specificity of phytophagous insects has been of particular interest because of its crucial role in diversification and life-history evolution. However, the majority of tropical insects remain insufficiently explored with respect to thei...

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Autores principales: Holm, Sille, Javoiš, Juhan, Molleman, Freerk, Davis, Robert B, Õunap, Erki, Roininen, Heikki, Tammaru, Toomas
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Oxford University Press 2019
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6490970/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/31039585
http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/jisesa/iez028
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author Holm, Sille
Javoiš, Juhan
Molleman, Freerk
Davis, Robert B
Õunap, Erki
Roininen, Heikki
Tammaru, Toomas
author_facet Holm, Sille
Javoiš, Juhan
Molleman, Freerk
Davis, Robert B
Õunap, Erki
Roininen, Heikki
Tammaru, Toomas
author_sort Holm, Sille
collection PubMed
description Specificity is one of the fundamental concepts in ecology. Host specificity of phytophagous insects has been of particular interest because of its crucial role in diversification and life-history evolution. However, the majority of tropical insects remain insufficiently explored with respect to their host-plant relations. A lack of respective data is also hindering the debate over whether higher levels of host-plant specificity prevail in tropical insects compared to temperate ones. We investigated host-plant specificity of forest geometrid moths (Lepidoptera: Geometridae) in equatorial Africa using host-plant acceptability trials with neonate larvae, with the addition of field observations. We compare our experimental data to the (well-known) host-specificity patterns of closely related temperate (hemiboreal) species. Similarly to the temperate region, there were broadly polyphagous tropical species in several clades of Geometridae utilizing hosts belonging to different plant families. Phylogenetic comparative analysis returned no significant differences in host specificity between the two regions. Our study contributes to the evidence that host-plant specificity of herbivores is not necessarily substantially higher in tropical than temperate regions.
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spelling pubmed-64909702019-05-02 No Indication of High Host-Plant Specificity in Afrotropical Geometrid Moths Holm, Sille Javoiš, Juhan Molleman, Freerk Davis, Robert B Õunap, Erki Roininen, Heikki Tammaru, Toomas J Insect Sci Research Articles Specificity is one of the fundamental concepts in ecology. Host specificity of phytophagous insects has been of particular interest because of its crucial role in diversification and life-history evolution. However, the majority of tropical insects remain insufficiently explored with respect to their host-plant relations. A lack of respective data is also hindering the debate over whether higher levels of host-plant specificity prevail in tropical insects compared to temperate ones. We investigated host-plant specificity of forest geometrid moths (Lepidoptera: Geometridae) in equatorial Africa using host-plant acceptability trials with neonate larvae, with the addition of field observations. We compare our experimental data to the (well-known) host-specificity patterns of closely related temperate (hemiboreal) species. Similarly to the temperate region, there were broadly polyphagous tropical species in several clades of Geometridae utilizing hosts belonging to different plant families. Phylogenetic comparative analysis returned no significant differences in host specificity between the two regions. Our study contributes to the evidence that host-plant specificity of herbivores is not necessarily substantially higher in tropical than temperate regions. Oxford University Press 2019-04-30 /pmc/articles/PMC6490970/ /pubmed/31039585 http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/jisesa/iez028 Text en © The Author(s) 2019. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of Entomological Society of America. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted reuse, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
spellingShingle Research Articles
Holm, Sille
Javoiš, Juhan
Molleman, Freerk
Davis, Robert B
Õunap, Erki
Roininen, Heikki
Tammaru, Toomas
No Indication of High Host-Plant Specificity in Afrotropical Geometrid Moths
title No Indication of High Host-Plant Specificity in Afrotropical Geometrid Moths
title_full No Indication of High Host-Plant Specificity in Afrotropical Geometrid Moths
title_fullStr No Indication of High Host-Plant Specificity in Afrotropical Geometrid Moths
title_full_unstemmed No Indication of High Host-Plant Specificity in Afrotropical Geometrid Moths
title_short No Indication of High Host-Plant Specificity in Afrotropical Geometrid Moths
title_sort no indication of high host-plant specificity in afrotropical geometrid moths
topic Research Articles
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6490970/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/31039585
http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/jisesa/iez028
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