Niche Breadth and Feeding in Tropical Grasshoppers
Autor: | Le Gall Philippe |
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Rok vydání: | 1991 |
Předmět: |
Lippia
biology Hypoestes Ecology fungi Niche food and beverages SPECIALISATION biology.organism_classification Generalist and specialist species Acrididae RELATION HOTE PARASITE Insect Science INSECTE NUISIBLE COMPORTEMENT ALIMENTAIRE Gall Grasshopper SAUTERELLE Ecology Evolution Behavior and Systematics Trophic level |
Zdroj: | International Journal of Tropical Insect Science. 12:201-208 |
ISSN: | 1742-7592 1742-7584 |
DOI: | 10.1017/s1742758400020701 |
Popis: | Consumption indices and apparent digestibility are measured for seven species of grasshoppers from Lamto (Ivory Coast), representative of different trophic specialization steps (Le Gall and Gillon, 1989). The consumption indices vary from 0.11 to 0.34 and the apparent digestibility from 30 to 65%. Specialists are not more efficient on their host plant than are generalists on convenient host plants, but some specialists fed on plants which are not convenient for generalists. Anthermus granosus and Eucoptacra spathulacauda feeding on Lippia multiflora is not convenient for a generalist like Eucoptera anguliflava. If feeding efficiency does not seem to be a real selective pressure, it can be an important step in specialization processes, when there is an adaptation to an unusable host plant for polyphagous species. Differences in the constitution of plant parts eaten by the grasshopper play an important role in the digestibility. The differences in the efficiency observed between the two specialists of Lippia are from their differences in feeding behaviour. |
Databáze: | OpenAIRE |
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