Quantifying direct and indirect effects of early-season herbivory on reproduction across four brassicaceous plant species

Insect herbivores can directly affect plant reproduction by feeding on reproductive tissues, or indirectly by feeding on vegetative tissues for which plants are unable to compensate. Additionally, early-arriving herbivores may have cascading effects on plant reproduction by altering the later-arriving community. However, the dynamic interplay between plant development and the assembly of herbivore communities remains underexplored. Hence, it is unclear whether non-outbreak levels of ambient herbivory early in the development of plants can impact plant fitness and to what extent these effects are mediated through changes in plant development and subsequent herbivory. By excluding the herbivore community in an exclosure experiment and by manipulating early-season herbivory in a common garden field experiment replicated across four Brassicaceae species and two years, we tested whether early-season herbivory by caterpillars (Pieris rapae) or aphids (Myzus persicae) affected development, re..., Herbivore_Community
We recorded the development of herbivore communities on the focal plants planted in monoculture plots by monitoring individual plants from seedling to seed set. Recording of the herbivore communities started two days after the experiment was installed. We monitored the development of herbivore communities on individual plants by weekly counts early in the season and by biweekly counts later in the season. Insects were identified in situ to species or family level. If accurate identification was not possible, we included the observations as morphospecies in our data.
Plant_Parameters
In addition to observations of the herbivore community, we recorded a set of plant parameters as proxies for plant biomass and development: plant height (measured from the ground to the top of the plant), diameter (measured as the distance between the two most distal leaves), the number of true leaves, and the number of flowering and seed-carrying branches (aggregated as reproductive bran..., , # Quantifying direct and indirect effects of early-season herbivory on reproduction across four brassicaceous plant species

[https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.c866t1gf7](https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.c866t1gf7)

The data contains observations on the development of four different brassicaceous plant species and their associated herbivore community in a field experiment conducted in the summers of 2017 and 2018 in Wageningen, The Netherlands. These plants were challenged early in their life to herbivory by either caterpillars or aphids or were left untreated. In addition, we include the observed reproductive output on these plants, as well as that of plants that were exposed to the same treatment, but which were grown in a parallel experiment in which herbivore communities were excluded.

These data allow us to test whether our herbivory treatments affected plant development and reproduction and whether effects were predominantly mediated by variation in plant growth or variation in the plan...