LTREB: Long-term Studies of Herbivore and Pathogen Damage to Tropical Trees

他们建议收集热带雨林中35种植物的食草动物和病原体对幼叶的损害率的长期数据。对于热带耐荫树种，超过70%的一生对叶片的伤害发生在叶片展开的短窗口期间。因此，为了了解热带植物的防御，他们必须把重点放在幼叶上。很少有研究量化食草动物对幼叶的损害，也没有研究跟踪损害超过1年。包括病原体的研究甚至更少，尽管在潮湿的热带地区，病原体可能几乎和食草动物一样具有破坏性。长期的、多物种的研究对于理解叶片防御是至关重要的。植物的防御取决于某一特定植物物种是受到许多物种的攻击，还是只受到少数物种的攻击，受到专家或通才的攻击，受到病原体的攻击，还是受到食草动物的攻击。每年的损害有多大的差异？这几个糟糕的年份是造成损失的主要原因吗？每年的主要影响因素是相同的吗？或者，每种病原体或食草动物造成的损害是否每年都有变化？为了回答这些问题，他们将监测损坏率并找出罪魁祸首。大部分损害可以归因于草食动物或病原体的个别物种，我们还将对植物物候进行量化，以获得同步性的衡量标准，并确定每个物种的主要产叶时间。这项工作将在巴拿马巴罗科罗拉多岛(BCI)的一片低地雨林中进行。他们在脑-机接口方面的广泛研究经验，加上几项长期的研究，提高了他们提议的项目的价值。这35种研究物种代表了20个不同的科，以确保它们对损害模式的多样性进行采样。由于幼叶的膨大速度与伤害的相关性最好，因此它们将包括幼叶快速扩张和缓慢扩张的物种。最后，为了让他们的数据尽可能对其他调查人员有用，他们将包括BCI上森林动力学地块中最常见的14种物种。

They propose to collect long-term data on the rates of damage to young leaves by herbivores and pathogens for 35 species of plants in a tropical rainforest. For tropical shade- tolerant species, over 70% of the lifetime damage to a leaf occurs during the short window of leaf expansion. To understand plant defenses in the tropics, they must therefore focus on the young leaves. Few studies have quantified herbivore damage to young leaves, and none have followed damage for more than 1 year. Even fewer studies have included pathogens, despite the fact that, in the humid tropics, they may be almost as destructive as herbivores. Long-term, multi-species studies are critical for understanding the leaf defenses. Plant defenses depend on whether a given plant species is attacked by many species or only a few, by specialists or generalists, by pathogens or by herbivores. How much variation is there in damage from year to year? Do the few bad years account for most of the damage? Are the major players the same each year, or is there annual variation in the damage attributed to each spe cies of pathogen or herbivore? To answer these questions, they will monitor damage rates and identify the culprits. Much of the damage can be attributed to individual species of herbivores or pathogens, we will also quantify plant phenology to obtain a measure of synchrony and to identify when major periods of leaf production occur for each species. The work will be carried out in a lowland rainforest on Barro Colorado Island (BCI), in Panama. Their extensive research experience on BCI coupled with several long-term studies enhance the value of their proposed project. The 35 study species represent 20 different families to ensure that they sample the diversity of damage patterns. As the rate of expansion of young leaves is the best correlate with damage, they will include species with both fast- and slow-expanding young leaves. And finally, so that their data are as useful as possible to other investigators, they will include the 14 most common species in the Forest Dynamics Plot on BCI.