Plant-caterpillar interaction matrices of temperate broadleaf forests

1. Assemblages of insect herbivores are structured by plant traits such as nutrient content, secondary metabolites, physical traits, and phenology. Many of these traits are phylogenetically conserved, implying a decrease in trait similarity with increasing phylogenetic distance of the host plant taxa. Thus, a metric of phylogenetic distances and relationships can be considered a proxy for phylogenetically conserved plant traits and used to predict variation in herbivorous insect assemblages among co-occurring plant species. 2. Using a Holarctic dataset of exposed-feeding and shelter-building caterpillars, we aimed at showing how phylogenetic relationships among host plants explain compositional changes and characteristics of herbivore assemblages. 3. Our plant–caterpillar network data derived from plot-based samplings at three different continents included >28,000 individual caterpillar-plant interactions. We tested if increasing phylogenetic distance of the host plants leads t...1. 植食性昆虫群落的结构由植物性状塑造，诸如营养成分、次生代谢物、物理性状与物候期。其中多数性状具有系统发育保守性，即寄主植物类群的系统发育距离越大，其性状相似性越低。因此，系统发育距离与亲缘关系的度量指标可作为系统发育保守性植物性状的代理变量，用于预测共存植物类群间植食性昆虫群落的组成变异。 2. 本研究依托涵盖裸食性与筑蔽型毛虫的全北极（Holarctic）数据集，旨在阐明寄主植物的亲缘关系如何解释植食性昆虫群落的组成变化与群落特征。 3. 我们的植物-毛虫网络数据源自三大洲的样地采样，包含超过28000组独立的毛虫-植物互作记录。本研究检验了寄主植物的系统发育距离增加是否会……