TY - JOUR

T1 - Leaf Nutritional Content, Tree Richness, and Season Shape the Caterpillar Functional Trait Composition Hosted by Trees

AU - Anttonen, Perttu

AU - Li, Yi

AU - Chesters, Douglas

AU - Davrinche, Andréa

AU - Haider, Sylvia

AU - Bruelheide, Helge

AU - Chen, Jing Ting

AU - Wang, Ming Qiang

AU - Ma, Ke Ping

AU - Zhu, Chao Dong

AU - Schuldt, Andreas

N1 - Publisher Copyright: © 2022 by the authors.

PY - 2022/11/29

Y1 - 2022/11/29

N2 - 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.

AB - 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.

KW - Biology

KW - body weight

KW - carbon

KW - defense

KW - generalist

KW - leaf traits

KW - Lepidoptera

KW - magnesium

KW - nitrogen

KW - plant richness

KW - Specialist

KW - body weight;

KW - carbon

KW - defense

KW - generalist

KW - leaf traits

KW - lepidoptera

KW - magnesium

KW - nitrogen

KW - plant richness

KW - specialist

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85144702367&partnerID=8YFLogxK

UR - https://www.mendeley.com/catalogue/ace297a2-0833-395d-af37-affa09a5dfa6/

U2 - 10.3390/insects13121100

DO - 10.3390/insects13121100

M3 - Journal articles

C2 - 36555010

AN - SCOPUS:85144702367

VL - 13

JO - Insects

JF - Insects

SN - 2075-4450

IS - 12

M1 - 1100

ER -