Insect herbivores, chemical innovation, and the evolution of habitat specialization in Amazonian trees

Autor: Italo Mesones, Paul V. A. Fine, Margaret R. Metz, J. Milagros Ayarza Zuñiga, Christopher Baraloto, Greg P. A. Lamarre, John Lokvam, Magno Vásquez Pilco
Přispěvatelé: Dept Integrat Biol, Dept Plant Pathol, University of California [Davis] (UC Davis), University of California-University of California, Dept Biol, Utah State University (USU), Ecologie des forêts de Guyane (ECOFOG), Centre de Coopération Internationale en Recherche Agronomique pour le Développement (Cirad)-Institut National de la Recherche Agronomique (INRA)-Université des Antilles et de la Guyane (UAG)-AgroParisTech-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS), Dept Forestal, Universidad Nacional de la Amazonía Peruana [Loreto, Perou] (UNAP), Universidad nacional de la amazonia peruana
Jazyk: angličtina
Rok vydání: 2013
Předmět:
0106 biological sciences
[SDV.SA]Life Sciences [q-bio]/Agricultural sciences
Insecta
terra firme forests
Range (biology)
DIVERSITY
TROPICAL FORESTS
Insect
natural enemies
01 natural sciences
Trees
Soil
Plant defense against herbivory
ecological speciation
media_common
0303 health sciences
Ecotype
Ecology
herbivory
Biological Evolution
RESOURCE AVAILABILITY
COMMUNITY
Habitat
Sympatric speciation
DIVERSIFICATION
Burseraceae
Brazil
media_common.quotation_subject
ecotypes
PLANT DEFENSES
Protium subserratum
Biology
010603 evolutionary biology
Ecological speciation
03 medical and health sciences
white-sand forests
tropical rain forests
Amazonia
plant defense
REGRESSION
Animals
ESCALATION
ASSEMBLAGES
SYMPATRIC SPECIATION
Ecosystem
Ecology
Evolution
Behavior and Systematics
030304 developmental biology
Population Density
Herbivore
fungi
15. Life on land
Zdroj: Ecology
Ecology, Ecological Society of America, 2013, 94 (8), pp.1764-1775. ⟨10.1890/12-1920.1⟩
ISSN: 0012-9658
Popis: Herbivores are often implicated in the generation of the extraordinarily diverse tropical flora. One hypothesis linking enemies to plant diversification posits that the evolution of novel defenses allows plants to escape their enemies and expand their ranges. When range expansion involves entering a new habitat type, this could accelerate defense evolution if habitats contain different assemblages of herbivores and/or divergent resource availabilities that affect plant defense allocation. We evaluated this hypothesis by investigating two sister habitat specialist ecotypes of Protium subserratum (Burseraceae), a common Amazonian tree that occurs in white-sand and terra firme forests. We collected insect herbivores feeding on the plants, assessed whether growth differences between habitats were genetically based using a reciprocal transplant experiment, and sampled multiple populations of both lineages for defense chemistry. Protium subserratum plants were attacked mainly by chrysomelid beetles and cicadellid hemipterans. Assemblages of insect herbivores were dissimilar between populations of ecotypes from different habitats, as well as from the same habitat 100 km distant. Populations from terra firme habitats grew significantly faster than white-sand populations; they were taller, produced more leaf area, and had more chlorophyll. White-sand populations expressed more dry mass of secondary compounds and accumulated more flavone glycosides and oxidized terpenes, whereas terra firme populations produced a coumaroylquinic acid that was absent from white-sand populations. We interpret these results as strong evidence that herbivores and resource availability select for divergent types and amounts of defense investment in white-sand and terra firme lineages of Protium subserratum, which may contribute to habitat-mediated speciation in these trees.
Databáze: OpenAIRE
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