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Cambridge University Press 978-0-521-83488-9 - Insect Ecology: Behavior, Populations and Communities Peter W. Price, Robert F. Denno, Micky D. Eubanks, Deborah L. Finke and Ian Kaplan Excerpt More information Part I Introduction CONTENTS Chapter 1 The scope of insect ecology We introduce insect ecology by looking at the many remarkable features of the insects: their long evolutionary history, important design characteristics, including wings and flight, and the prodigious numbers of species and numbers of individuals per species. Inevitably, such vast richness entails many kinds of interaction, the basis for the study of insect ecology, because individuals and species provide part of the environment which any insect experiences. Ecology is the science of relationships of organisms to their environment: the physical and the biotic components with which they interact. How they relate depends on their design and their behavior, the latter aspect forming Part II of this book. With millions of species of insects comes the question of how so many can evolve and coexist, subjects addressed in this chapter and other parts of the book. Also, we consider the roles that insects play in ecosystems, and the scientific method employed in their study. These introductory considerations set the stage for expanding many themes in subsequent parts and chapters. Part II is devoted to behavioral ecology, Part III to species interactions and Part IV to population ecology. Moving to larger arrays of interacting species we devote Part V to food webs and communities, and Part VI to patterns and processes over the Earth’s surface. We generally are innately fascinated by insects and other arthropods at a young age, but cultural defects tend to diminish this enjoyment, while enhancing dread and avoidance. With more understanding provided by insect ecology we can recover a sense of wonder, and a knowledge of belonging with insects on this planet. © in this web service Cambridge University Press www.cambridge.org Cambridge University Press 978-0-521-83488-9 - Insect Ecology: Behavior, Populations and Communities Peter W. Price, Robert F. Denno, Micky D. Eubanks, Deborah L. Finke and Ian Kaplan Excerpt More information 1 The scope of insect ecology Everybody is conscious of insects, and even concerned about them. In fact, we each have an ecological relationship with their kind. We share our houses and gardens with them, our walks and picnics, and our adventures. So should we not understand them? Their richness in species and interactions, their beauty and behavioral intricacy, all enrich our lives if we understand who they are, and what they are doing. Therefore, the ecology of insects is for everybody. Eisner (2003, p. 1), in his latest book, For Love of Insects, starts by writing that “This book is about the thrill of discovery.” And, Wilson (1994, p. 191), in his autobiographical, Naturalist, advised, “Love the organisms for themselves first, then strain for general explanations, and, with good fortune, discoveries will follow. If they don’t, the love and the pleasure will have been enough.” Here is sound advice from two of the greatest practitioners of entomology and ecology, for discovery is thrilling, and the deeper the fascination one develops, the greater will be the discoveries that follow. When considering the features of insects that make them remarkable, many attributes come to mind; their diversity of numbers, shapes, colors and habits are incredible. Their potential for future evolutionary change is unimaginably rich. The ecological interactions that insects enter into are diverse and important, involving consumption of plants, including crops and forest trees, predation on other insects and ecosystem processes, such as cycling of nutrients and decomposition. Some insects are highly beneficial for humans, while others are harmful. Thus, insect ecology serves the needs of both the desire to understand nature as a basic contribution to knowledge, and the need to solve the practical problems posed by insect pests concerning human hygiene, animal husbandry, agriculture, forestry, horticulture and the urban environment. We will elaborate on these features of insects, and the need to study and understand them, in the following sections of this chapter, and in the remainder of the book. First we discuss the evolution and design of insects, before looking at the richness of the insect fauna and their relationships. In the later part of the chapter we turn our attention to how insects have become so numerous and diverse through adaptive radiation, and their roles in ecosystem processes. © in this web service Cambridge University Press www.cambridge.org Cambridge University Press 978-0-521-83488-9 - Insect Ecology: Behavior, Populations and Communities Peter W. Price, Robert F. Denno, Micky D. Eubanks, Deborah L. Finke and Ian Kaplan Excerpt More information 4 The scope of insect ecology 1.1 Fascination with insects evidence of insects feeding on plants, including generalized foliage feeding, boring internally, and While developing a fascination with insects we piercing and sucking types, and by 250 million years necessarily enter into the whole realm of Nature, ago most types of insect feeding were evident and because insects interact with almost all other living most types of plant parts were fed upon by insects. In species in one way or another. By studying insects for the tree fern swamp forests of the late Carboniferous their own enjoyment, “with good fortune” we may (308 MYA) the first evidence of gall-inducing insects perform good science. “Nature first, then theory” was has been described, and seed predation on seed ferns the order advised by Wilson (1994, p. 191). was evident. As plants diversified, so too did the The fascination with insects derives from many of insects, providing a rich paleoecological background their characteristics. Their charms and annoyances for studies of plant and herbivore interactions. are multifaceted. Insects have inspired art, design and Insects shared the land with other arthropods such literature, they act as a significant source of food in as centipedes, millipedes and spiders through the some parts of the world, they afflict millions with Devonian and Carboniferous, their distributions bites and infections while providing essential being widespread and presumably with high services in pollination and ecosystem processes. Their abundance. Their lives were uncomplicated by the interactions with humans, agricultural crops, forests, presence of vertebrate predators for perhaps 20–25 livestock and other domesticated animals make million years. But in the late Devonian, amphibians insects of ubiquitous concern. Seldom will a day pass made a partial entry into the terrestrial fauna, while without seeing or interacting with insects. They are still breeding in water. Both on land and in water so common locally, and widespread geographically, amphibians were no doubt preying on insects, that virtually all humans experience their presence. although impact was probably small, and 20–25 But, in spite of their commonness, many people million years is a pretty good run without vertebrate misunderstand insects, regarding them as vermin, predators for the insects. and are even frightened by some. However, the study The evolution of flight in insects constituted a of insect ecology can only contribute to our breakthrough to an extraordinary adaptive radiation fascination with them, and our admiration for the in the late Carboniferous – an adaptive radiation roles they play in nature and in environments never equaled on this Earth. This was about 150 modified by humans. million years before pterosaurs, birds and bats flew. The conquest of the air, so early among terrestrial animals, was no doubt of prime 1.2 Antiquity of insects importance in the spread of insects across the globe. Add to this the sheer age of insects, and the The earliest insect fossils date back to about time for diversification, and we can begin to 400 million years ago (Kukalova´-Peck 1991, understand why insect species are so numerous, Labandeira 2002, Grimaldi and Engel 2005), deep in and in some ways dominant on Earth. the Devonian Period and Palaeozoic Era. Plants diversified during the Siluro-Devonian “explosion” (420–360 MYA), followed by a rapid radiation of 1.3 Insect body plan insects during the Carboniferous, with an extraordinary emergence of flying insect taxa by The body plan features of insects have, without a 300 million years ago. We can see from Figure 1.1 doubt, contributed in key ways to the impressive that already in the Devonian (400 MYA) there is fossil radiation of the group. Two characters in particular © in this web service Cambridge University Press www.cambridge.org Cambridge University Press 978-0-521-83488-9 - Insect Ecology: Behavior, Populations and Communities Peter W. Price, Robert F. Denno, Micky D. Eubanks, Deborah L. Finke and Ian Kaplan Excerpt More information External foliage feeding Feeding on internal tissues Surface Pollination Aquatic Seed fluid Functional General- Margin Hole Skeleton- Free Bud Piercing Boring Leaf Galling feeding syndromes feeding feeding group ized feeding feeding ization feeding feeding and sucking mining predation yrs) 6 10 × Ma ( Period or Period subperiod Era 0 Neo- gene 50 Caenozoic Palaeogene 100 Cretaceous 150 Mesozoic Jurassic Angiosperm 200 revolution Tree fern swamp forests 250 Permian Triassic 300 Penn. Palaeozoic 350 Miss. Carboniferous 400 Devonian Figure 1.1 The fossil record of insects associated