INSECTS ON PLANTS: Diversity of Herbivore Assemblages Revisited

摘要

The diversity and composition of herbivore assemblages was a favored theme for community ecology in the 1970s and culminated in 1984 with Insects on Plants by Strong; Lawton and Southwood. We scrutinize findings since then; considering analyses of country-wide insect-host catalogs; field studies of local herbivore communities; and comparative studies at different spatial scales. Studies in tropical forests have advanced significantly and offer new insights into stratification and host specializationof herbivores. Comparative and long-term data sets are still scarce; which limits assessment of general patterns in herbivore richness and assemblage structure. Methods of community phylogenetic analysis; complex networks; spatial and among-host diversity partitioning; and metacommunity models represent promising approaches for future work.