Collaborative Research: Effects of forest fragmentation on Lepidopteran herbivores of contrasting diet breadth

合作研究：森林破碎化对不同饮食宽度的鳞翅目食草动物的影响

• 批准号: 1557086
• 负责人: Robert Bagchi
• 金额: $ 61.04万
• 依托单位: University of Connecticut
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2016
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2016-12-01 至 2021-11-30
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1557086&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Collaborative; Research; Effects; forest; fragmentation

The fragmentation of habitats into smaller and more isolated pieces can leave animals in areas that have insufficient food resources within reach. This problem is particularly acute for those species that are dietary specialists. These specialists may then be lost from the habitats, and their loss can have cascading effects on other species that may further alter the composition of ecological communities. This project will test alternative hypotheses that have been proposed to explain declines in specialist herbivores from fragmented forests. This research is important in understanding how changes in land use or other disturbances that fragment habitats will affect biodiversity and the integrity of ecosystems. The project will focus on butterfly larvae of species with different diet requirements as model study organisms. Their dependence on particular plant species and their role as prey for birds will be studied in 40 forest sites in Connecticut where the basic ecological interactions are well known. In addition to analysis of response to past forest fragmentation, experiments protecting caterpillars from predation will help quantify the importance of food resources. The study will improve understanding of natural food webs subject to human impacts and can guide future forest management. This project will also provide research training for students in forest ecology that will strengthen the scientific workforce.Forest fragmentation is likely to substantially modify interactions among species, and a recurrent pattern is the loss of dietary specialists from food webs in small forest fragments. Focusing on a complex, tri-trophic ecological network of larval Lepidoptera, their hostplants, and avian predators, the project will establish how bottom-up and top-down mechanisms alter the absolute and relative abundance of specialist herbivores in forest fragments. The project will combine extensive extant data on plant-Lepidoptera associations and regional forest fragmentation, new data on plants and caterpillars at 40 sites, field experiments, and lab analyses on caterpillar diet breadth and growth response, to quantify effects of host plant availability and predation on the diet specificity of lepidopteran larvae in temperate deciduous forests. This detailed, multi-trophic approach will enhance mechanistic understanding of changes in trophic networks due to fragmentation. Four broader impacts will result from this work: 1) training future scientists, 2) recruiting underrepresented groups, 3) public outreach in science and 4) improving scientific infrastructure.

将栖息地分割成更小、更孤立的小块，可能会使动物生活在食物资源不足的地区。 这个问题对于那些饮食专家来说尤其严重。 这些专家可能会从栖息地消失，他们的损失可能会对其他物种产生连锁反应，可能会进一步改变生态群落的组成。 该项目将测试已提出的解释破碎森林中专业食草动物减少的替代假设。这项研究对于了解土地使用的变化或其他破坏生境的干扰将如何影响生物多样性和生态系统的完整性非常重要。 该项目将侧重于具有不同饮食需求的物种的蝴蝶幼虫作为模型研究生物。 它们对特定植物物种的依赖以及它们作为鸟类猎物的作用将在康涅狄格州的40个森林地点进行研究，这些地点的基本生态相互作用是众所周知的。 除了分析对过去森林破碎化的反应外，保护毛毛虫免受捕食的实验将有助于量化食物资源的重要性。 这项研究将增进对受人类影响的自然食物网的了解，并可指导今后的森林管理。 本项目还将为学生提供森林生态学方面的研究培训，以加强科学工作者队伍，森林的分割很可能大大改变物种之间的相互作用，经常出现的模式是小森林片段的食物网失去专门的饮食专家。 该项目重点关注一个复杂的，三营养生态网络的幼虫鳞翅目，他们的寄主植物和鸟类捕食者，该项目将建立自下而上和自上而下的机制如何改变绝对和相对丰富的专业食草动物在森林片段。该项目将结合联合收割机广泛的现存数据植物鳞翅目协会和区域森林破碎化，在40个地点的植物和毛毛虫的新数据，实地实验和实验室分析毛毛虫的饮食宽度和生长反应，量化的影响，寄主植物的可用性和捕食的鳞翅目幼虫在温带落叶林的饮食特异性。这种详细的，多营养的方法将提高营养网络的变化，由于碎片的机械理解。 这项工作将产生四个更广泛的影响：1）培养未来的科学家，2）招募代表性不足的群体，3）科学的公众宣传和4）改善科学基础设施。