Pliocene Insect Herbivory Dynamics in Central Europe as Key to the Future

最近关于植物-昆虫在深时相互作用的研究表明，气候变化等全球变化因素可以改变生物多样性和营养相互作用。它们还表明，生物多样性的丧失可能极大地阻碍营养相互作用，并改变生态系统的整体食物网结构。这些研究大多发生在新生代早期，当时气候发生了重大变化。新近纪，特别是上新世，从来没有受到这样详细的调查植物/昆虫协会。作为世界上最著名的植物产地之一，也是欧洲上新世最丰富的植物群之一，上新世晚期的Lagerstätte Willershausen是一个理想的环境，用于评估全球气候，大气CO2和全球变化之间的关系，在比今天明显温暖的条件下，但具有相似的古地理配置。此外，该项目还涵盖了对多营养相互作用的一般影响，例如宿主植物的使用和宿主-分类群协会的保护，这可能往往是由改变生物环境的地理变化或气候变化引起的。由于壳斗科（山毛榉科）是古老的Willershausen湖周围的常见组成部分，化石叶子允许分析橡树协会的进化中的系统发育模式，这似乎是由其长期的进化历史驱动的，其中物种最丰富的捕食昆虫谱系-橡树瘿蜂（Hyattera，Cynipidae，Cynipini）。

Recent studies on plant-insect interactions in deep time have shown that global change components, such as climate change, can change biodiversity and trophic interactions. They have also shown that biodiversity loss may greatly impede trophic interactions and change the overall food web structure of ecological systems. Most of these studies were situated in the early Cenozoic were major climate shifts took place. The Neogene and particularly the Pliocene have never been subject to such a detailed investigation on plant/insect associations. As being among the most famous plant localities in the world and being one of the richest Pliocene floras in Europe, the Upper Pliocene Lagerstätte Willershausen is an ideal setting for the evaluations of relationships among global climate, atmospheric CO2, and global change on multitrophic interactions and biodiversity under conditions significantly warmer than today, but with a similar palaeogeographic configuration. Furthermore, the project covers also general effects on multitrophic interactions, such as host plant use and conservation of host-taxon associations, which may often be triggered by geographic shifts or climatic changes that alter the biotic environment. As Fagaceae (beech family) are a common component around the acient Willershausen lake, the fossil leaves allow an analysis of phylogenetic patterns in the evolution of oak associations that seems to be driven by their long-term evolutionary history, with the most species-rich lineages of galling insects - the oak gallwasps (Hymenoptera, Cynipidae, Cynipini).