Find research datasets worth reusing

opencc-zeroJan 2021View details →

Flightlessness in insects enhances diversification and determines assemblage structure across whole communities

Dispersal limitation has been recurrently suggested to shape both macroecological patterns and microevolutionary processes within invertebrates. However, because of potential interactions among biological, environmental, temporal, and spatial variables, causal links among flight-related traits, diversification and spatial patterns of community assembly remain elusive. Integrating genetic variation within species across whole insect assemblages, within a simplified spatial and environmental framework, can be used to reduce the impact of these potentially confounding variables. Here we used standardised sampling and mtDNA sequencing for a whole-community characterisation of the beetle fauna inhabiting a singular forested-habitat (laurel forest) within an oceanic archipelago setting (Canary Islands). The spatial structure of species assemblages together with species-level genetic diversity was compared at the archipelago and island scales for 104 winged and 110 wingless beetle lineages. We found that wingless beetle lineages have (i) smaller range sizes at the archipelago scale, (ii) lower representation in younger island communities, (iii) stronger population genetic structure, and (iv) greater spatial structuring of species assemblages between and within islands. Our results reveal that dispersal limitation is a fundamental trait driving diversity patterns at multiple hierarchical levels by promoting spatial diversification and affecting the spatial configuration of entire assemblages at both island and archipelago scales.

opencc-zeroDec 2014View details →

Data from: Resource specialists lead local insect community turnover associated with temperature – analysis of an 18-year full-seasonal record of moths and beetles

Insect responses to recent climate change are well documented, but the role of resource specialization in determining species vulnerability remains poorly understood. Uncovering local ecological effects of temperature change with high-quality, standardized data provides an important first opportunity for predictions about responses of resource specialists, and long-term time series are essential in revealing these responses. Here, we investigate temperature-related changes in local insect communities, using a sampling site with more than a quarter-million records from two decades (1992–2009) of full-season, quantitative light trapping of 1543 species of moths and beetles. We investigated annual as well as long-term changes in fauna composition, abundance and phenology in a climate-related context using species temperature affinities and local temperature data. Finally, we explored these local changes in the context of dietary specialization. Across both moths and beetles, temperature affinity of specialists increased through net gain of hot-dwelling species and net loss of cold-dwelling species. The climate-related composition of generalists remained constant over time. We observed an increase in species richness of both groups. Furthermore, we observed divergent phenological responses between cold- and hot-dwelling species, advancing and delaying their relative abundance, respectively. Phenological advances were particularly pronounced in cold-adapted specialists. Our results suggest an important role of resource specialization in explaining the compositional and phenological responses of insect communities to local temperature increases. We propose that resource specialists in particular are affected by local temperature increase, leading to the distinct temperature-mediated turnover seen for this group. We suggest that the observed increase in species number could have been facilitated by dissimilar utilization of an expanded growing season by cold- and hot-adapted species, as indicated by their oppositely directed phenological responses. An especially pronounced advancement of cold-adapted specialists suggests that such phenological advances might help minimize further temperature-induced loss of resource specialists. Although limited to a single study site, our results suggest several local changes in the insect fauna in concordance with expected change of larger-scale temperature increases.

opencc-zeroDec 2017View details →

Data from: Resource dispersion influences dispersal evolution of highly insulated insect communities

Communities in which species are obligately associated with a single host plant are ideal to test adaptive responses of community traits to selection since such communities are often highly insulated. Fig species provide oviposition resources to co-evolved fig-wasp communities. Dispersing fig-wasp communities move from one host plant to another for oviposition. We compared the spatial dispersion of two fig species and the dispersal capacities of their multitrophic wasp communities. Dispersal capacities were assessed by measuring vital dispersal correlates, namely tethered flight durations, somatic lipid contents and resting metabolic rates. We suggest that dispersal-trait distributions of congeneric wasp species across the communities are an adaptive response to host plant dispersion. Larger dispersal capacities of the entire multitrophic community are related to more widely dispersed resources. Our results provide evidence and a novel perspective for understanding the potential role of adaptation in whole-community dispersal-trait distributions.

opencc-zeroDec 2016View details →

Data from: Plant community composition but not plant traits determine the outcome of soil legacy effects on plants and insects

1.Plants leave species-specific legacies in the soil they grow in that can represent changes in abiotic or biotic soil properties. It has been shown that such legacies can affect future plants that grow in the same soil (plant-soil feedback, PSF). Such processes have been studied in detail, but mostly on individual plants. Here we study PSF effects at the community level and use a trait-based approach both in the conditioning phase and in the feedback phase to study how twelve individual soil legacies influence six plant communities that differ in root size. 2.We tested if (I) grassland perennial species with large root systems would leave a stronger legacy than those with small root systems, (II) grass species would leave a more positive soil legacy than forbs and (III) communities with large root systems would be more responsive than small-rooted communities. We also tested (IV) whether a leaf chewing herbivore and a phloem feeder were affected by soil legacy effects in a community framework. 3.Our study shows that the six different plant communities that we used respond differently to soil legacies of twelve different plant species and their functional groups. Species with large root systems did not leave stronger legacies than species with small root systems, nor were communities with large root systems more responsive than communities with root systems. 4.Moreover, we show that when communities are affected by soil legacies, these effects carry over to the chewing herbivore Mamestra brassicae (Lepidoptera: Noctuidae) through induced behavioral changes resulting in better performance of a chewing herbivore on forb-conditioned soils than on grass-conditioned soils, whereas performance of the phloem feeder Rhopalosiphum padi (Hemiptera: Aphididae) remained unaffected. 5.Synthesis: The results of this study shed light on the variability of soil effects found in previous work on feedbacks in communities. Our study suggests that the composition of plant communities determines to a large part the response to soil legacies. Furthermore, the responses to soil legacies of herbivores feeding on the plant communities that we observed, suggests that in natural ecosystems, the vegetation history may also have an influence on contemporary herbivore assemblages. This opens up exciting new areas in plant-insect research and can have important implications for insect pest management.

opencc-zeroNov 2022View details →

Large herbivores facilitate an insect herbivore by modifying plant community composition in a temperate grassland

Large herbivores often co-occur and share plant resources with herbivorous insects in grassland ecosystems, yet how they interact with each other remains poorly understood. We conducted a series of field experiments to investigate whether and how large domestic herbivores (sheep; Ovis aries) may affect the abundance of a common herbivorous insect (aphid; Hyalopterus pruni) in a temperate grassland of northeast China. Our exclosure experiment showed that three years (2010-2012) of sheep grazing had led to 86% higher aphid abundance compared with ungrazed sites. Mechanistically, this facilitative effect was driven by grazing altering the plant community, rather than by changes in food availability and predator abundance for aphids. Sheep significantly altered plant community by reducing the abundance of unpalatable forbs for the aphids. Our small-scale forb removal experiment revealed an "associational plant defense" by forbs which protect the grass Phragmites australis from being attacked by the aphids. However, selective grazing on forbs by sheep indirectly disrupted such associational plant defense, making P. australis more susceptible to aphids, consequentially increasing the density of aphids. These findings provide a novel mechanistic explanation for the effects of large herbivores on herbivorous insects by linking selective grazing to plant community composition and the responses of insect populations in grassland ecosystems.

opencc-zeroJan 2022View details →

Functional relationship between woody plants and insect communities in response to Bursaphelenchus xylophilus infestation in the Three Gorges Reservoir region

To study the effect of the invasion of Bursaphelenchus xylophilus on the functional relationship between woody plants and insect communities, the populations of tree species and insect communities were investigatived in the Masson pine forests with different infestation durations of B. xylophilus.

Figure 4 from: Ceballos-Escalera A, Richards J, Arias MB, Inward DJG, Vogler AP (2022) Metabarcoding of insect-associated fungal communities: a comparison of internal transcribed spacer (ITS) and large-subunit (LSU) rRNA markers. MycoKeys 88: 1-33. https://doi.org/10.3897/mycokeys.88.77106

Figure 4 Heatmap using Pearson's correlation coefficient between the OTUs generated from the ITS2 and LSU D1-D2 metabarcodes and the analysed beetle species and forest types. Rectangles indicate the strength of association between an OTU and beetle/forest (strongly negative, grey, to strongly positive, red). Fungal OTUs (on the horizontal axis) were classified to genus or species level where possible; they are shown in random order and cannot be linked taxonomically between both markers.

opencc-zeroMar 2022View details →

Supplementary material 1 from: Ceballos-Escalera A, Richards J, Arias MB, Inward DJG, Vogler AP (2022) Metabarcoding of insect-associated fungal communities: a comparison of internal transcribed spacer (ITS) and large-subunit (LSU) rRNA markers. MycoKeys 88: 1-33. https://doi.org/10.3897/mycokeys.88.77106

Figure S1. Length distribution of the ITS (grey) and LSU (orange) OTUs

Figure 7 from: Ceballos-Escalera A, Richards J, Arias MB, Inward DJG, Vogler AP (2022) Metabarcoding of insect-associated fungal communities: a comparison of internal transcribed spacer (ITS) and large-subunit (LSU) rRNA markers. MycoKeys 88: 1-33. https://doi.org/10.3897/mycokeys.88.77106

Figure 7 Closed reference clustering of OTUs and phylogenetic trees at different thresholds A results from the closed reference clustering of OTUs at each clustering threshold against composite LSU/ITS2 reference sequences. LSU matches in green, ITS2 matches in blue, linked matches (for which both an ITS2 and LSUOTU were matched to a reference sequence of the same species) in yellow. Underlined taxa indicate new matches at each clustering threshold B phylogenetic tree of LSUOTUs under increasingly stringent clustering thresholds, with arrows marking newly added taxa as threshold values are increased.

Figure 3 from: Ceballos-Escalera A, Richards J, Arias MB, Inward DJG, Vogler AP (2022) Metabarcoding of insect-associated fungal communities: a comparison of internal transcribed spacer (ITS) and large-subunit (LSU) rRNA markers. MycoKeys 88: 1-33. https://doi.org/10.3897/mycokeys.88.77106

Figure 3 NMDS ordination plot of all specimens sampled with ITS2 and LSU D1-D2, based on the fungal community composition of the individual beetles. Shapes represent forest types and colours represent beetle species. Stress for this graph fell within acceptable ranges (<0.2).

Figure 2 from: Ceballos-Escalera A, Richards J, Arias MB, Inward DJG, Vogler AP (2022) Metabarcoding of insect-associated fungal communities: a comparison of internal transcribed spacer (ITS) and large-subunit (LSU) rRNA markers. MycoKeys 88: 1-33. https://doi.org/10.3897/mycokeys.88.77106

Figure 2 Top panel: The proportion of OTUs identified as members of a fungal Class determined by the ITS2 and LSU D1-D2 regions. For the spruce forest, only nine X. germanus and four X. saxesenii specimens were retained after rarefaction. Lower panel: The number of fungal OTUs per beetle specimen, separate for each beetle species and forest type, for ITS2 and LSU.

Figure 6 from: Ceballos-Escalera A, Richards J, Arias MB, Inward DJG, Vogler AP (2022) Metabarcoding of insect-associated fungal communities: a comparison of internal transcribed spacer (ITS) and large-subunit (LSU) rRNA markers. MycoKeys 88: 1-33. https://doi.org/10.3897/mycokeys.88.77106

Figure 6 Order-level trees and splitting/lumping of OTUs at clustering A order-level ML trees with mixed OTU clustering thresholds (99% LSU D1-D2, 98% ITS2). Full tree in supplementary materials. Leotia lubrica was used as the outgroup (not pictured). Brackets indicate reference taxa linked to an ITS2 and/or LSUOTU, with colours indicating potential splitting/lumping (blue, splitting; green, lumping; orange, 1:1) B diagram illustrating the effects of splitting and lumping of an OTU in the fungal community on the tree inference. Four hypothetical species (A to D) in a community are treated under uniform clustering thresholds for ITS2 and LSU. This may result in deviation from the 1:1 ratio of OTUs expected if each species in the community is represented equally by both markers (species A). Threshold values may be too high, resulting in splitting of species into multiples OTUs, which is likely to affect the more variable ITS2 region (species B) or may be too low, resulting in lumping of multiple species into a single OTU, likely to affect the conservative LSU region (species C and D).

opencc-zeroMar 2022View details →

Supplementary material 4 from: Ceballos-Escalera A, Richards J, Arias MB, Inward DJG, Vogler AP (2022) Metabarcoding of insect-associated fungal communities: a comparison of internal transcribed spacer (ITS) and large-subunit (LSU) rRNA markers. MycoKeys 88: 1-33. https://doi.org/10.3897/mycokeys.88.77106

Figure S4. Binding site of ITS86 primer showing mismatched base pairs in Ophiostomatales

Figure 1 from: Ceballos-Escalera A, Richards J, Arias MB, Inward DJG, Vogler AP (2022) Metabarcoding of insect-associated fungal communities: a comparison of internal transcribed spacer (ITS) and large-subunit (LSU) rRNA markers. MycoKeys 88: 1-33. https://doi.org/10.3897/mycokeys.88.77106

Figure 1 The proportion of fungi classified with IDTAXA, Protax-fungi and RDP from class to species level. "All" refers to the proportion of OTUs for which the three classifiers agreed in their classification.

opencc-zeroMar 2022View details →

Supplementary material 7 from: Ceballos-Escalera A, Richards J, Arias MB, Inward DJG, Vogler AP (2022) Metabarcoding of insect-associated fungal communities: a comparison of internal transcribed spacer (ITS) and large-subunit (LSU) rRNA markers. MycoKeys 88: 1-33. https://doi.org/10.3897/mycokeys.88.77106

Table S3. Number of OTUs assigned to each order based on RDP Bayesian classifier

Figure 5 from: Ceballos-Escalera A, Richards J, Arias MB, Inward DJG, Vogler AP (2022) Metabarcoding of insect-associated fungal communities: a comparison of internal transcribed spacer (ITS) and large-subunit (LSU) rRNA markers. MycoKeys 88: 1-33. https://doi.org/10.3897/mycokeys.88.77106

Figure 5 ML tree of Sordariomycetes constructed from the reference sequence alignments and OTUs for both markers (clustering thresholds: 98% ITS2, 99% LSU D1-D2). Leotia lubrica (Leotiomycetes) was specified as the outgroup. The assignment of OTUs by each of the three classifiers (RDP, IDTAXA, Protax-fungi) is shown by coloured boxes. Terminals missing these boxes are the reference sequences. Coloured dots on the nodes of the tree indicate the hypothetical ancestor defining monophyletic groups corresponding to the various orders of Sordariomycetes. The extent of each order is indicated by the coloured inner ring. Note that the ancestor of an order is defined by the youngest node from which all reference sequences are descended; OTUs falling outside of the resulting clades appear as 'unassigned' by the phylogenetic analysis approach. The distribution of ITS2 (red squares) and LSU D1-D2 (blue bullets) relative to the reference set (yellow stars) on each of the tips of the tree. Note the limited presence of ITS sequences in the Ophiostomatales (in top right quadrant).

Figure 8 from: Ceballos-Escalera A, Richards J, Arias MB, Inward DJG, Vogler AP (2022) Metabarcoding of insect-associated fungal communities: a comparison of internal transcribed spacer (ITS) and large-subunit (LSU) rRNA markers. MycoKeys 88: 1-33. https://doi.org/10.3897/mycokeys.88.77106

Figure 8 Proportion of OTUs assigned to each Order from metabarcoding with LSU (left panel) and ITS (right panel) markers based on the RDP classifier and the phylogenetic tree, under increasing threshold values.

opencc-by-4.0Dec 2022View details →

Figure 3 in Changes in galling insect community on Caryocar brasiliense trees mediated by soil chemical and physical attributes

Figure 3. Principal components regressions among: (A) abundance of parasitoids (A.P.) with abundance of galling insects (A.G.I.); (B) species richness of parasitoids (S.R.P.) with pH in water, species richness of galling insects (S.R.G.I.), and sand (dag kg-1) (Sa.); (C) diversity of parasitoids (D.P.) with diversity of galling insects (D.G.I.), silt (dag kg-1) (Si.), and clay (dag kg-1) (Cl.); (D) Sycophila sp. adults (Syc.) with Eurytoma sp. galling insect adults (Eur.) and Ablerus magistretti adults (Ama.); and (E) Ama. with Eur., phosphorus-Mehlich 1 (mg dm-3) contents (P.C.), Si., Syc., aluminum (cmol dm-3) contents (A.C.), and pH on Caryocar brasiliense trees in three years. The c symbols represent the averages and the bars the standard errors. n = 111.

opencc-by-4.0Dec 2015View details →

Fig. 12 in Does Bt maize cultivation affect the non-target insect community in the agro ecosystem?

Fig. 12. Estimated richness of secondary pests (S.P.) and natural enemies (N.E.) in ears of conventional and transgenic maize for Cry1Ab, Cry1F and combined Cry2Ab2 and Cry1A105 proteins (A) and estimated richness in conventional maize and Bt maize (B) in different counties in Minas Gerais.Bars represent 95% confidence interval.