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Positive and negative effects of leaf shelters on herbivorous insects: linking multiple herbivore species on a willow

  • Community Ecology
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Abstract

We experimentally examined the effects on other herbivorous insects of leaf shelters constructed by lepidopteran larvae on a willow, Salix miyabeana. Several insect species occupied the vacant leaf shelters. Our experiment using artificial leaf shelters showed that the number of aphids increased with the number of artificial leaf shelters on a shoot, as did the numbers of three ant species (Camponotus japonicus, Lasius hayashi, and Myrmica jessensis) that entered leaf shelters to collect aphid honeydew. To determine the ant-mediated effect of leaf shelters on herbivorous insects that do not use leaf shelters, we transferred newly hatched larvae of a common leaf beetle, Plagiodera versicolora, to the leaves of shoots with and without artificial leaf shelters. One day after the transfer, larval survival rate was significantly lower on shoots with shelters than on those without shelters, and shoots with shelters had significantly more ants than did shoots without shelters. Our field experiments demonstrated clearly that shelter-making lepidopteran larvae increased the abundance of both aphids and ants and decreased the survival rate of leaf beetle larvae, probably because the larvae were removed by ants that were attracted to the leaf shelters by the aphid colonies.

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Acknowledgements

We thank M. Kondoh, M. Walker, and T. Craig for their valuable comments on earlier drafts of this manuscript. We also thank T. Hayashi for help in the field. This study was partially supported by a Grant-in-Aid for General Scientific Research to T.O. (09NP1501) from the Ministry of Education, Science, Sports and Culture, Japan, and by the MEXT Grant-in-Aid for the 21st Century COE Program (A2 to Kyoto University).

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  1. Masahiro Nakamura & Takayuki Ohgushi

    Present address: Center for Ecological Research, Kyoto University, Kamitanakami, Otsu, 520–2113, Shiga, Japan

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  1. Institute of Low Temperature Science, Hokkaido University, 060–0819, Sapporo, Japan

    Masahiro Nakamura & Takayuki Ohgushi

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  1. Masahiro Nakamura
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  2. Takayuki Ohgushi
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Correspondence to Masahiro Nakamura.

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Nakamura, M., Ohgushi, T. Positive and negative effects of leaf shelters on herbivorous insects: linking multiple herbivore species on a willow. Oecologia 136, 445–449 (2003). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00442-003-1285-5

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