Insect Herbivores on Goldenrods (Solidago altissima) in the Finger Lakes Region, New York, USA

Insect herbivores on the Goldenrod Solidago altissima were censused in spring and autumn over a sixteen year period (1981-1996) in old fields in the Finger Lakes region of New York State, USA. The digitized data included here are from the spring and autumn censuses of 1981. The original data from all years are archived and publicly available at the Cornell University Llibrary, Division of Rare and Manuscript Collections: Richard Root Papers, #14-35-4058.

Previous publications based on these data focused on a number of questions: (1) (a) to what extent the functional structure of the community was maintained by compensatory changes in the densities of the member species, and (b) whether certain traits were associated with a species' tendency to fluctuate in density or to dominate the community (Root, R.B. and N. Cappuccino, 1992) and (2) in combination with insect removal experiments, measuring temporal variation in herbivore pressure and plant phenotypic responses to different levels of insect herbivory (Root, R.B., 1996).