Plant architecture and the diversity of phytophagous insects.

Abstract

Various patterns emerge in a consideration of the relationship between plant-feeding insects and their hosts: insect species diversity increases with size and persistence of plant life-form, for instance, and there are seasonal changes in both insect diversity and plant architecture, the latter including leaf form and persistence. Although size of host per se may be critical, more subtle relationships are seen in exploring the resource diversity hypothesis, where diversity in feeding sites, escape space (from enemies) and the possibility of zonation of insect herbivores are some of the implications. Cautious extrapolation is made from patterns involving a single plant-species and its insect community to relationships between whole plant communities and insects.-P.J.Jarvis