Herbivore communities in the Andean mountain forest zone - comparisons within selected plant species along contrasting environmental dimensions

安第斯山森林区的草食动物群落 - 根据对比环境维度对选定植物物种进行比较

• 批准号: 36004075
• 负责人: Professor Dr. Konrad Fiedler
• 金额: --
• 依托单位: Instituto de Ecologia
• 依托单位国家: 德国
• 项目类别: Research Units
• 财政年份: 2007
• 资助国家: 德国
• 起止时间: 2006-12-31 至 2013-12-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://gepris.dfg.de/gepris/projekt/36004075?language=en
• 关键词: Herbivore; communities; Andean; mountain; forest

We propose to investigate communities of caterpillars on selected focal plants along two environmental gradients with appropriate spatial and temporal replication. First, caterpillar assemblages on common understorey forest shrubs (Piper, Hedyosmum, Psychotria) shall be analyzed at three elevations (1000, 2000 & 3000 m, associated with the NUMEX experiment) to gain insight into species diversity, abundance, herbivore pressure, influence of natural enemies, and network diversity in insect-plant interactions, in a tropical mountain forest biodiversity hotspot. These data will be important for a better understanding of ecosystem function as well as for modelling the impact of climate change in tropical mountains. Second, we will study caterpillar communities on young treelets (e.g. Cedrela, Tabebuia, Heliocarpus) in experimental afforestations and compare these with the respective herbivore assemblages in natural forest. This will allow us to assess how much afforestations with native trees, even at an early age, contribute to support biodiversity on a higher trophic level. Collectively, these approaches are aimed to advance our understanding of the mechanisms that generate and maintain the extraordinary biodiversity of insects in Andean forests.

我们建议沿着两个环境梯度调查选定的焦点植物上的毛毛虫群落，并进行适当的空间和时间复制。首先，应在三个海拔（1000、2000 和 3000 m，与 NUMEX 实验相关）对常见林下森林灌木（Piper、Hedyosmum、Psychotria）上的毛毛虫组合进行分析，以深入了解热带山地森林生物多样性热点地区的物种多样性、丰度、食草动物压力、天敌的影响以及昆虫与植物相互作用的网络多样性。这些数据对于更好地了解生态系统功能以及模拟气候变化对热带山区的影响非常重要。其次，我们将研究实验造林中幼树（例如雪松树、塔贝布亚树、太阳果树）上的毛毛虫群落，并将其与天然林中各自的食草动物群落进行比较。这将使我们能够评估本土树木的造林，即使是在幼年，对支持更高营养级的生物多样性有多大贡献。总的来说，这些方法旨在增进我们对安第斯森林中产生和维持昆虫非凡生物多样性的机制的理解。