Data from: Seasonally dependent relationship between insect herbivores and host plant density in Jatropha nana- a tropical perennial herb

The fact that plant spatial aggregation patterns shape insect herbivore communities in a variety of ways has resulted in a large body of literature on the subject. The landmark resource concentration hypothesis predicts that density of insect-herbivores per plant will increase as host plant density increases. I examined this prediction across temporal samplings using Jatropha nana and the associated specialist insect-herbivores as a system. Through 12 field samplings, I modelled the effect of host plant density on insect-herbivore loads. The initial samplings (2-3) provided evidence for the resource concentration hypothesis with insect loads increasing with increasing host plant density, whereas the later samplings (4-5, 7-11) showed the opposite- a resource dilution pattern with decline of insect loads with increasing host plant density. These patterns also depend on the biology of the herbivores and have important implications on J. nana population dynamics.植物空间聚集格局以多种方式塑造昆虫植食者群落这一现象，已催生了大量相关研究文献。经典的资源集中假说（Resource Concentration Hypothesis）预测，单株寄主植物上的昆虫植食者种群密度会随寄主植物密度升高而上升。本研究以小油桐（Jatropha nana）及其专性植食性昆虫类群为研究系统，通过时序采样对该预测展开验证。依托12次野外采样，本研究构建了寄主植物密度对昆虫植食者负载量影响的统计模型。前期采样（第2-3次）为资源集中假说提供了支撑：昆虫负载量随寄主植物密度升高而上升；而后期采样（第4-5次、第7-11次）则呈现相反模式——资源稀释效应，即昆虫负载量随寄主植物密度升高而下降。该分布格局同时依赖于植食者的生物学特性，且对小油桐（J. nana）的种群动态具有重要的生态学意义。