RT Journal Article
SR Electronic
T1 Variation in insect herbivore communities on individual plants reveals phylogenetic signal in uncertainty of attack in Brassicaceae
JF bioRxiv
FD Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory
SP 2020.12.06.413724
DO 10.1101/2020.12.06.413724
A1 Daan Mertens
A1 Klaas Bouwmeester
A1 Erik H. Poelman
YR 2020
UL http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2020/12/07/2020.12.06.413724.abstract
AB As a result of co-evolution between plants and herbivores, related plants often interact with similar communities of herbivores. On individual plants, typically only a subset of interactions is realized. The stochasticity of realized interactions leads to uncertainty of attack on individual plants and is likely to determine adaptiveness of plant defence strategies. Here, we show that across 12 plant species in two phylogenetic lineages of the Brassicaceae, variation in realized herbivore communities reveals a phylogenetic signal in the uncertainty of attack on individual plants. Individual plants of Brassicaceae Lineage II were attacked by a larger number of herbivore species from a larger species pool, resulting in a higher uncertainty of realized antagonistic interactions compared to plants in Lineage I. We argue that uncertainty of attack in terms of realized interactions on individual plants is ecologically relevant and must therefore be considered in the evolution of plant defences.