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

我们建议沿两种具有适当空间和时间复制的环境梯度研究毛虫在选定的焦点植物上的群落。首先，在热带山林生物多样性热点地区，结合NUMEX实验，对海拔1000、2000和3000 m的常见林下灌木（Piper、Hedyosmum、Psychotria）上的毛虫群落进行分析，了解其物种多样性、丰度、草食压力、天敌影响和虫-植物相互作用网络多样性。这些数据对于更好地了解生态系统功能以及模拟热带山区气候变化的影响非常重要。其次，我们将研究实验林幼树（如Cedrela， Tabebuia, Heliocarpus）上毛虫群落，并将其与天然林中各自的草食动物组合进行比较。这将使我们能够评估原生树木造林在多大程度上有助于支持更高营养水平的生物多样性，即使是在早期。总的来说，这些方法旨在促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。

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.