Collaborative Research: Effects of forest fragmentation on Lepidopteran herbivores of contrasting diet breadth

合作研究：森林破碎化对不同饮食宽度的鳞翅目食草动物的影响

• 批准号: 1556766
• 负责人: Michael Singer
• 金额: $ 25.89万
• 依托单位: Wesleyan University
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2016
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2016-12-01 至 2021-11-30
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1556766&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Collaborative; Research; Effects; forest; fragmentation

The fragmentation of habitats in to smaller and more isolated pieces can leave animals in areas that have insufficient food resources within reach. This problem is particularly acute for those species that are dietary specialists. These specialists may then be lost from the habitats, and their loss can have cascading effects on other species that may further alter the composition of ecological communities. This project will test alternative hypotheses that have been proposed to explain declines in specialist herbivores from fragmented forests. This research is important in understanding how changes in land use or other disturbances that fragment habitats will affect biodiversity and the integrity of ecosystems. The project will focus on butterfly larvae of species with different diet requirements as model study organisms. Their dependence on particular plant species and their role as prey for birds will be studied in 40 forest sites in Connecticut where the basic ecological interactions are well known. In addition to analysis of response to past forest fragmentation, experiments protecting caterpillars from predation will help quantify the importance of food resources. The study will improve understanding of natural food webs subject to human impacts and can guide future forest management. This project will also provide research training for students in forest ecology that will strengthen the scientific workforce.Forest fragmentation is likely to substantially modify interactions among species and a recurrent pattern is the loss of dietary specialists from food webs in small forest fragments. Focusing on a complex, tri-trophic ecological network of larval Lepidoptera, their hostplants and avian predators, the project will establish how bottom-up and top-down mechanisms alter the absolute and relative abundance of specialist herbivores in forest fragments. The project will combine extensive extant data on plant-Lepidoptera associations and regional forest fragmentation, new data on plants and caterpillars at 40 sites, field experiments, and lab analyses on caterpillar diet breadth and growth response to quantify effects of host plant availability and predation on the diet specificity of lepidopteran larvae in temperate deciduous forests. This detailed, multi-trophic approach will enhance mechanistic understanding of changes in trophic networks due to fragmentation. Four broader impacts will result from this work: 1) training future scientists, 2) recruiting underrepresented groups, 3) public outreach in science and 4) improving scientific infrastructure.

栖息地碎裂到较小和更孤立的碎片中可能会使动物在距离不足的地区。 对于那些是饮食专家的物种，这个问题尤其严重。 然后，这些专家可能会从栖息地中丧失，它们的损失可能会对其他物种产生层叠的影响，这些物种可能会进一步改变生态群落的组成。 该项目将检验提出的替代假设，以解释碎片森林中的食草动物的下降。这项研究对于理解土地使用变化或碎片栖息地将如何影响生物多样性和生态系统完整性的其他干扰很重要。 该项目将集中于具有不同饮食需求的物种的蝴蝶幼虫作为模型研究生物。 它们对特定植物物种的依赖及其作为鸟类的作用将在康涅狄格州的40个森林地点进行研究，其中基本的生态相互作用是众所周知的。 除了分析对过去森林破碎化的反应外，保护毛毛虫免受捕食的实验还将有助于量化食物资源的重要性。 该研究将提高对受人为影响的天然食品网的了解，并可以指导未来的森林管理。 该项目还将为森林生态学的学生提供研究培训，以增强科学劳动力。原始分裂可能会大大改变物种之间的相互作用，而经常发生的模式是小森林碎片中食品网丧失了饮食专家。 该项目着重于幼虫鳞翅目，宿主植物和鸟类捕食者的复杂，三四光生态网络，该项目将如何确定自下而上的和自上而下的机制如何改变森林碎片中专家草食动物的绝对和相对丰度。该项目将结合有关植物 - 叶翅目协会和区域森林破碎的广泛现有数据，有关40个地点的植物和毛毛虫的新数据，现场实验以及实验室饮食广度和实验室分析，对caterpillar饮食广度和生长响应，对宿主植物的可用性和捕食量的量化作用，鳞翅目幼虫在温带落叶林中的饮食特异性。这种详细的多营养方法将增强对由于破碎化导致营养网络变化的机械理解。 这项工作将产生四个更广泛的影响：1）培训未来的科学家，2）招募代表性不足的群体，3）科学公共宣传和4）改善科学基础设施。