Multi-trophic interactions of Butterflies Along a gradienT of MANagement intensity in grasslands and forest (BATMAN)

草地和森林中蝴蝶沿着管理强度梯度的多营养相互作用（BATMAN）

• 批准号: 60884820
• 负责人: Professorin Dr. Alexandra-Maria Klein
• 金额: --
• 依托单位: Lehrstuhl für Tierökologie und Tropenbiologie (Zoologie III)
• 依托单位国家: 德国
• 项目类别: Infrastructure Priority Programmes
• 财政年份: 2008
• 资助国家: 德国
• 起止时间: 2007-12-31 至 2010-12-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://gepris.dfg.de/gepris/projekt/60884820?language=en
• 关键词: Multi; trophic; interactions; Butterflies; Along

The impact of management intensity on ecosystem processes like predation and parasitism of herbivores is poorly studied in changing environments. Field exclosure experiments are a good method to quantify effects of bottom up and top down control of herbivores. In this project we aim to quantify the relative importance of different predator groups and endophytic fungi in food plants on butterfly larvae along a management intensity gradient. We further detect the species diversity of butterflies and their parasitoids and of the endophyte infection rate of one grass species along the management intensity gradient. The surveys will be conducted on all 300 intensive study plots (forest and grasslands) in the three exploratories. The exclosure experiments will be conducted in half of these plots and partly in the very intensive research plots. In a first experiment on the very intensive plots exclosures on each site will differ in their access for different predator groups. We hypothesize that predators do control herbivores more successfully in less intensively managed study sites. In a second experiment we also manipulate the food plant quality by using endophyte infected food plants, which produce insect toxic alkaloids, and compare it with endophyte free plants. With predator exclosures and full access of insect predators to a fixed number of reared butterfly larvae on the standardized food plants we will quantify the relative importance of bottom up and top down control along a management gradient. We hypothesize that bottom up control becomes more important and top down control less important on plots with higher management intensity. We will further quantify endophyte infection rates with the fungi Neotyphodium sp. of a grass species and will test the effects of endophyte presence on the life history of butterfly larvae in laboratory experiments. Finally we will quantify the diversity of butterflies with transect counts and their parasitoid diversity in reared butterfly larvae. We hypothesize that the parasitoid diversity is more negatively affected by increasing management intensity than the lower trophic level of butterflies and much lower than vascular plants.

在变化的环境中，管理强度对生态系统过程（如食草动物的捕食和寄生）的影响研究较少。野外围隔试验是定量评价自下而上和自上而下控制效果的一种好方法。在这个项目中，我们的目标是量化的相对重要性，不同的捕食者群体和内生真菌的食物植物上的蝴蝶幼虫沿着管理强度梯度。进一步沿管理强度梯度检测了蝶类及其寄生蜂的物种多样性和沿着一种草种内生真菌感染率。调查将在三个勘探站的所有300个密集研究地块（森林和草地）上进行。围封试验将在这些地块的一半和部分在非常密集的研究地块进行。在第一个实验中，在非常密集的地块上，每个地点的围栏对于不同的捕食者群体来说会有所不同。我们假设，食肉动物更成功地控制草食动物在不太密集的管理研究地点。在第二个实验中，我们还通过使用产生昆虫毒性生物碱的内生菌感染的食用植物来操纵食用植物质量，并将其与无内生菌的植物进行比较。与捕食者外壳和昆虫捕食者的完全访问到一个固定数量的饲养蝴蝶幼虫的标准化食品厂，我们将量化的相对重要性，自下而上和自上而下的控制沿着管理梯度。我们假设，自下而上的控制变得更重要，自上而下的控制不太重要的地块上管理强度较高。我们将进一步量化内生菌感染率与真菌Neotyphodium属。的草种，并将测试内生菌的存在对蝴蝶幼虫的生活史在实验室实验中的影响。最后，我们将量化的蝴蝶样带计数和饲养蝴蝶幼虫的寄生蜂多样性的多样性。我们推测，寄生虫多样性的负面影响，增加管理强度比低营养级的蝴蝶和维管植物低得多。