Data from: Museum specimens provide novel insights into changing plant-herbivore interactions

Mounting evidence shows that species interactions may mediate how
individual species respond to climate change. However, long-term
anthropogenic effects on species interactions are poorly characterized due
to a lack of data. Insect herbivory is a major ecological process that
represents the interaction between insect herbivores and their host
plants, but historical data on insect damage to plants is particularly
sparse. Here, we suggest that museum collections of insects and plants can
fill key gaps in our knowledge on changing trophic interactions, including
proximate mechanisms and the net outcomes of multiple global change
drivers across diverse insect herbivore-plant associations. We outline
theory on how global change may affect herbivores and their host plants
and highlight the unique data that could be extracted from museum
specimens to explore their shifting interactions. We aim to provide a
framework for using museum specimens to explore how some of the most
diverse co-evolved relationships are responding to climate and land use
change.