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Abrupt changes in invertebrate herbivory on woody plants at the forest–tundra ecotone

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Abstract

Invertebrate herbivores, insects in particular, play important functional roles in terrestrial ecosystems. At background (non-outbreak) densities, they consume 5–15 % of woody plant foliage in forests across the planet. At the same time, almost nothing is known about the levels of insect herbivory in Arctic tundra. To test the hypothesis that the amount of plant biomass lost to insects in tundra is substantially less than in subarctic forests, in 2013, we explored foliar herbivory in woody plants at three sites in the Arctic tundra and four sites in the subarctic forests of European Russia. A vast majority of foliar damage was imposed by externally feeding defoliators. In forests, defoliators damaged three times more leaves and consumed eight times more leaf area than in the tundra. No miners were found in the tundra, and gallers affected five times less leaf area in the tundra compared with forests. An abrupt decrease in loss of woody plant foliage to insects between subarctic forests and tundra (from 4.34 to 0.56 %) supports the existence of a latitudinal gradient in herbivory in terrestrial ecosystems. More studies are needed to predict how tundra plants, which have been historically exposed to low levels of insect herbivory, will cope with the increased levels of damage that are expected to occur due to climate-driven range expansion and increased abundances of plant-feeding insects.

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Acknowledgments

We thank E. Yu. Churakova for help in identifying plants and E. L. Zvereva and three anonymous reviewers for commenting on an earlier draft of the manuscript. Research visits by MVK and VZ to the study sites were supported by INTERACT (Grant agreement no. 262693 under the EC 7th Framework Programme) and by the Otto Malm´’s Foundation. Fieldwork by BYF and NAZ was supported by the Ministry of Education and Science of the Russian Federation (Grant 5.4615.2011) and the Russian Foundation for the Basic Research (11-04-98814-north).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Section of Ecology, University of Turku, 20014, Turku, Finland

    Mikhail V. Kozlov & Vitali Zverev

  2. Department of Zoology and Ecology, Northern (Arctic) Federal University, Severnaya Dvina Emb. 17, 163000, Arkhangelsk, Russia

    Boris Yu. Filippov

  3. Institute of Ecological Problems of the North, Ural Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Severnaya Dvina Emb. 23, 163000, Arkhangelsk, Russia

    Natalia A. Zubrij

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  1. Mikhail V. Kozlov
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  2. Boris Yu. Filippov
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  4. Vitali Zverev
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Correspondence to Mikhail V. Kozlov.

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Kozlov, M.V., Filippov, B.Y., Zubrij, N.A. et al. Abrupt changes in invertebrate herbivory on woody plants at the forest–tundra ecotone. Polar Biol 38, 967–974 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00300-015-1655-6

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