Research Collection Journal Article Associational resistance and associational susceptibility Specialist herbivores show contrasting responses to tree stand diversification Author(s): Plath, Mirco; Dorn, Silvia; Riedel, Judith; Barrios, Hector; Mody, Karsten Publication Date: 2012-06 Permanent Link: https://doi.org/10.3929/ethz-b-000048937 Originally published in: Oecologia 169(2), http://doi.org/10.1007/s00442-011-2215-6 Rights / License: In Copyright - Non-Commercial Use Permitted This page was generated automatically upon download from the ETH Zurich Research Collection. For more information please consult the Terms of use. ETH Library Oecologia (2012) 169:477–487 DOI 10.1007/s00442-011-2215-6 PLANT-ANIMAL INTERACTIONS - ORIGINAL RESEARCH Associational resistance and associational susceptibility: specialist herbivores show contrasting responses to tree stand diversification Mirco Plath • Silvia Dorn • Judith Riedel • Hector Barrios • Karsten Mody Received: 6 April 2011 / Accepted: 22 November 2011 / Published online: 9 December 2011 Ó Springer-Verlag 2011 Abstract Heterospecific neighbors may reduce damage herbivore distribution. A strong contribution of the pyralid to a focal plant by lowering specialist herbivore loads to overall damage patterns in diversified stands suggests (associational resistance hypothesis), or enhance damage that associational susceptibility may not necessarily be by increasing generalist herbivore loads (associational related to higher abundances of generalist herbivores but susceptibility hypothesis). We tested the associational may also result from specialized herbivores affected by effects of tree diversity on herbivory patterns of the tropical resource dilution effects. Thus, the identity and biology of focal tree Tabebuia rosea in an experimental plantation herbivore species has to be taken into account when setup, which contained tree monocultures and mixed attempting to predict damage patterns in forest ecosystems. stands. We found higher herbivore damage to T. rosea at higher tree diversity, indicating that T. rosea did not benefit Keywords Competitor-free space Á Diet breadth Á Insect from associational resistance but rather experienced asso- herbivory Á Pasture reforestation Á Tree diversity ciational susceptibility. The specific consideration of the two dominant insect herbivore species of T. rosea, the specialist chrysomelid Walterianella inscripta and the Introduction specialist pyralid Eulepte gastralis, facilitated understand- ing of the detected damage patterns. Tree diversity exerted Vegetation complexity and characteristics of neighboring opposite effects on tree infestation by the two herbivores. plants may strongly affect interactions between herbivores These findings point to resource concentration effects for and a focal host plant, and specific associations can either the chrysomelid beetle (favored by tree monoculture) and decrease or increase the susceptibility of plants to herbi- to resource dilution effects for the pyralid caterpillar vores (Agrawal et al. 2006; Lewinsohn and Roslin 2008; (favored by tree mixture) as underlying mechanisms of Barbosa et al. 2009). Derived from these observations, the ‘associational resistance hypothesis’ predicts that a plant, in addition to its specific morphological and chemical Communicated by Andreas Prinzing. defense traits (Coley and Barone 1996; Schoonhoven et al. 2005; Gutbrodt et al. 2011), might experience ‘associa- Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (doi:10.1007/s00442-011-2215-6) contains supplementary tional resistance’ to herbivores by growing in close prox- material, which is available to authorized users. imity to other plant species (Tahvanainen and Root 1972). Several factors may contribute to associational resistance, & M. Plath Á S. Dorn Á J. Riedel Á K. Mody ( ) including chemical and physical interference of neighbor- Institute of Agricultural Sciences, Applied Entomology, ETH Zurich, Schmelzbergstrasse 9/LFO, 8092 Zurich, ing plant species as well as greater abundances and Switzerland diversity of natural enemies (Hamba¨ck and Beckerman e-mail: [email protected] 2003). In particular, host density is predicted to have strong effects on specialist herbivores as formulated in the H. Barrios Entomology Master Program, University of Panama, resource concentration hypothesis (Root 1973). This Panama City, Republic of Panama hypothesis states that specialist herbivore loads increase 123 478 Oecologia (2012) 169:477–487 with higher densities of the host plant in a given area unit, now there is little evidence for the effectiveness of these as specialist herbivores may locate their host plant more products under prevailing field conditions. The widespread easily and stay longer in patches with high host plant notion that forest monocultures are susceptible to insect densities. pest attacks has promoted the consideration of stand In contrast, the ‘associational susceptibility hypothesis’ diversification as sustainable, biodiversity-oriented strategy predicts that plants in diverse stands may suffer more from to control key insect pests in forestry systems (Lamb et al. herbivore attack than plants in single-species stands 2005; Koricheva et al. 2006 and references therein). (Brown and Ewel 1987). This phenomenon is expected to However, the effects of heterospecific tree associations on occur when the principal pests are generalist herbivores infestation of a focal host tree by key herbivores have (Jactel and Brockerhoff 2007), which benefit from the rarely been compared to effects of monocultures or to broader diet range available in diverse plant communities conventional protection by insecticides. (Unsicker et al. 2008). Associational susceptibility may In the present study, we examined the effects of tree also occur when the focal plant is a less-preferred host stand diversification on leaf herbivory (associational growing in close proximity to a highly preferred host effects) of a focal native timber tree, Tabebuia rosea Ber- (Atsatt and O’Dowd 1976), which allows a spill-over of tol. (Bignoniaceae), growing in monoculture and in three- generalist herbivores after depletion of the favored host species mixtures in an experimental plantation setup in plant (White and Whitham 2000). Panama. Insecticide application was used in additional Information concerning the effects of stand diversifica- treatments to achieve baseline information on reduction of tion on insect pests mainly stems from agricultural systems herbivore damage through conventional protection mea- (Andow 1991; Tscharntke et al. 2005). The existing studies sures. We concurrently identified the principal herbivore accounting for forest systems reveal contrasting results, for each stand type, determined its level of host plant demonstrating that mixed stands can suffer lower, higher, specialization and assessed the effect of individual stand or similar pest damage compared to single-species stands types on the herbivores’ densities (resource effects) and on (Koricheva et al. 2006; Jactel and Brockerhoff 2007; related herbivore impact on T. rosea. Kaitaniemi et al. 2007; Vehvilainen et al. 2007; Plath et al. According to the described resource-related associa- 2011b). Reflecting the opposite predictions of the hypoth- tional effects on specialist and generalist herbivores, we eses on ‘associational resistance’ and ‘associational sus- expected to identify one or several specialist herbivores as ceptibility’, these equivocal results emphasize that the net key herbivores in the monocultures. The specialist herbi- effects of diversification in forest systems may only be vores were expected to accumulate in higher densities in understood when the spatial arrangement of the focal plant monocultures compared to mixed stands. We further and characteristics of the principal herbivores are studied in expected to identify one or several generalist key herbi- concert. Hence, the identification of the key herbivores vores in mixed-species stands, occurring in higher densities responsible for the damage, their level of host plant spe- in mixed stands compared to monocultures. We hypothe- cialization, and the relative proportions of damage they sized that specialist key herbivores contribute most to cause may improve our understanding of the mechanisms overall damage of T. rosea in monocultures, and that that govern the direction of resource and associational generalist herbivores are responsible for principal damage effects on herbivore–plant interactions in forest systems. in mixed plantings. Information on the biology of insect pests in forest Specifically, we addressed the following questions: (1) systems can help to disentangle the causes of insect pest Does tree stand diversification affect herbivory of T. rosea? outbreaks, and hence, to improve the delivery of forest (2) Does the identity of key herbivores and their level of ecosystem services (Hamba¨ck and Beckerman 2003; Butler host specialization differ among stand types? (3) Do dif- et al. 2007; Tylianakis et al. 2007). Such information is ferent stand types affect the densities of the specific key particularly required for Central America, where forest herbivores and their contribution to herbivory of T. rosea? plantations with native tree species are increasingly con- sidered as an eligible strategy to mitigate the negative impacts of deforestation and land degradation (Lamb et al. Materials and methods 2005; Brockerhoff et al. 2008; Hall et al. 2011). However, although insect pests