Abstract
With continued suburban expansion in the southeastern United States, it is increasingly important to understand urbanization and its impacts on sustainability and natural ecosystems. Expansion of suburbia is often coupled with replacement of native plants with alien ornamental plants such as crepe myrtle, Bradford pear, and Japanese maple. The purpose of this project was to conduct an analysis of existing larval Lepidoptera and Symphyta hostplant records in the southeastern United States, comparing their species richness on common native and alien woody plants. We found that, in most cases, native plants have the capability of supporting more species of eruciform larvae compared to aliens. Alien congener plant species (those in the same genus as native species) supported more species of larvae than alien, non-congeners. Of the larvae that feed on alien plants, most of them are generalist species. However, most of the specialist species feeding on alien plants use congeners of native plants, providing evidence of a spillover, or false spillover effect. The results of this study are concordant with that which is predicted by the enemy release hypothesis, stating that alien plants are more successful in their non-native ranges due to reduced herbivore attack. With a reduction in primary consumer diversity, secondary consumers such as migratory birds and parasitoid wasps may also be impacted. These results highlight the need for further research in this area.
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Acknowledgments
We thank Robert Boyd, Alana Jacobson, Sharon Hermann (Auburn University) and Doug Tallamy (University of Delaware) for critically reviewing an earlier draft of this manuscript. We thank Edzard Van Santen (Auburn University) for consulting on statistical analysis. This paper is based upon work supported by the Alabama Agricultural Experiment Station through Hatch funding from the National Institute of Food and Agriculture, United States Department of Agriculture.
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Clem, C.S., Held, D.W. Species richness of eruciform larvae associated with native and alien plants in the southeastern United States. J Insect Conserv 19, 987–997 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10841-015-9815-0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10841-015-9815-0