Sentences with phrase «insect herbivores»

While the paper demonstrates that we probably need to factor in insect herbivores in climate models, it raises many more questions about exactly what effects these herbivores have in real - world forest systems.

It's quite likely that at different ages, trees will respond differently to both elevated carbon dioxide and insect herbivores.

Gregg (Michigan State University, East Lansing) is well known for his research on understanding the mechanisms underpinning plant resistance to insect herbivores.

Plants in nature are subject to attack by wide variety of caterpillars, beetles, aphids, and other insect herbivores.

Silica and Nitrogen Modulate Physical Defense Against Chewing Insect Herbivores in Bioenergy Crops Miscanthus x giganteus and Panicum virgatum (Poaceae), Paul Nabity, Robert Orpet, Saber Miresmailli, May Berenbaum, Evan H. Delucia, Journal of Economic Entomology, 105 (3), pp. 878 - 883, doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.1603/EC11424, June 2012.

A clue to this question came while Shao and senior study author Wilhelm Boland of the Max Planck Institute for Chemical Ecology were studying the cotton leafworm, Spodoptera littoralis, which is one of the most widespread insect herbivores in the temperate regions and causes substantial economic losses in crop production.

While insect herbivores constantly need leaves to survive, plants can remain dormant as seeds in the ground until more auspicious circumstances occur.

«These results show that the high insect damage diversity at Mexican Hat represents an influx of novel insect herbivores during the early Paleocene and not a refugium for Cretaceous leaf miners,» said Wilf.

The study analyzed multiple species of Inga, a genus of tropical trees that produces defensive chemicals, and their various insect herbivores.

It documents diets from site - specific host records for more than 7,500 species of insect herbivores from several continents.

For example, as restoration is completed along the Truckee River in Reno and Sparks, restoring and encouraging native plants that support specific insect herbivores will help keep the ecosystem and food chain stable and functioning into the future.

After decades of field work from dozens of sites around the world, and after two years of combing through and analyzing data, Matt Forister, associate professor and ecologist from the University of Nevada, Reno, and an international team have reported on global patterns in the diets of insect herbivores.

«Our dietary specialization studies show us that a majority of insect herbivores, around the world, pick one plant in their local ecosystem and feed on just that one type of plant, not every plant that's available, as many people assume.»

The researchers found that insects in tropical zones are indeed more specialized, and this was evident across hemispheres and across unrelated groups of insect herbivores.

«Previous studies had disagreed on whether or not insect herbivores in the tropics have more narrow diets than their temperate relatives.»

However, it may not always be obvious whether human activity or a forest's natural dynamics are at play in, for example, the dieback of a stand or the outbreak of an insect herbivore.

«Current evidence suggests that insect herbivore extinction decreased with increasing distance from the asteroid impact site in Mexico, so pools of surviving insects would have existed elsewhere that could have provided a source for the insect influx that we observed at Mexican Hat.»

Not exact matches

The scientists are now planning further experiments study the co-evolution of dandelions and their root herbivores in order of find out whether the presence of root - feeding insects has shaped the plant defensive chemistry in the course of evolution and whether the insects show adaptations to dandelion defenses.

Variation in insect diet has implications for numerous ecological and evolutionary processes, including effects of environmental disturbance, the stability of networks of interacting species and the top - down effects of predators being controlled by the level of herbivore diet specialization.

In recent years, scientists have identified a host of compounds called chemical elicitors — found, for example, in insect saliva — that can limit plant defenses, including the production of bad - tasting compounds that ward off herbivores.

This enables them to attract ants — which aggressively deter herbivores — while also luring insects that will spread pollen.

It's actually the type of nectar that's sometimes produced to attract insects that protect the plant from herbivores.

Many plants, including the wild tomato species used in this study, produce chemical compounds to repel insect pests and other hungry herbivores.

One such insect, the sap - sucking aphid (a common pest in gardens), has an effective escape plan, though: the bugs detect an approaching herbivore's breath and simply drop off the plant before it's eaten.Researchers at the University of Haifa at Oranim, Israel first noticed this phenomenon when they allowed a goat to feed on aphid - infested alfalfa plants — 65 percent of the plant pests simultaneously dropped to the ground just before the vegetation was devoured.The team suspected that several cues might have motivated the mass dropping, including the sudden shadow cast by the goat, plant - shaking triggered by the munching marauder and / or the herbivore's exhalations.

Some plant - produced chemicals poison herbivores or repel them; others reduce plants» nutritive value or impede an insect's growth.

The abundance was due not to more plant - specific herbivores but to many types of spiders and other predators coming to feast on the insects.

At each site Meyerson and Cronin measured plant biomass and defenses against herbivores and quantified insect damage by galling, chewing and sucking (aphids) insects to measure the effects of herbivory on Phragmites fitness.

The more plants have of it, the more nutritious they are for insects, livestock, and other herbivores.

By studying the responses to lyciumoside IV in Nicotiana attenuata's other specialist and generalist herbivores, they want to shed more light into this particular plant defense and the insects» counter-adaptations.

Nearly half of all insects are herbivores, but their diets do not consist of only plant material.

Current paradigms generally assume that increased plant nitrogen (N) should enhance herbivore performance by relieving protein limitation, increasing herbivorous insect populations.

As the most significant herbivores in the world, insects ingest microbes commonly found in plants or the surrounding environment, yet they are remarkably resistant to infections.

Here, it has few, if any, insect predators.This freedom from herbivores may explain one striking aspect of the plant's behavior in North America: It grows triple the size it reaches on home ground.

Aside from adding to the documented list of insects that eat bone, research by Holden et al. also sheds light on the conditions under which such insects will feed, and why mammalian herbivores offer a great setting for larval development.

The model shows that climate change that significantly decreases plant quality grants a competitive advantage to larger invertebrate herbivores, such as grasshoppers, ants and other insects, which are able to convert the foliage to energy more efficiently than smaller herbivores.

«We've known for a long time that herbivores do eat other insects, but so far people studying herbivory have kind of ignored that because it's a lot easier to put herbivores in a neat bin in which they only eat plants,» says Michigan State University ecologist William Wetzel, who did not participate in the study.

Second, some mammals seem more vulnerable to habitat loss than others: insect - eating mammals — like anteaters, armadillos and some primates, are the first to disappear — while other groups, like herbivores, seem to be less sensitive.»