THEORETICAL ECOLOGY Spring 2000 CANDACE LOW

Perspectives on the Coevolution of Insect-Plant Interactions

Armbuster, W. S. (1992). Phylogeny and the Evolution of Plant-Animal Interactions. Bioscience 42, 12-20.

Ø Discusses the importance of historical perspectives of ecological relationships and “ecophylogenetic” studies. Parsimony analysis is useful but homoplasy is a natural occurrence, so how do you determine pattern association? The stronger the selective association, the less likely we can detect causality and the presence of pattern does not prove that the hypothesis is true. This article discusses the aforementioned problem and other risks and methods of testing.

Berenbaum, M. R. (1983). Coumarins and caterpillars: a case for coevolution. Evolution 37, 163-179.

Ø Discusses evolution of furanocoumarins, toxicity to insects, plant radiation into a new adaptive zone, and specialist lepidopterans that have physiological immunity and behavioral adaptations to this chemical. Examines coevolutionary mechanism between insect herbivores and plants with biosynthetic pathway of hydroxycoumarin production. This study supports the concept of reciprocal evolutionary interactions between insects and secondary plant chemistry.

Berenbaum, M. R. & Zangerl, A. R. (1998). Chemical phenotype matching between plant and its insect herbivore. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. USA 95, 13743-13748.

Ø A continuation of Berenbaum (1983). The insect herbivore is the parsnip webworm, Depressaria pastinacella, and the plant host is the wild parsnip, Pastinaca sativa. Compares an "escalating arms race" model to "stable cycling" in the evolution of resistance traits of the plants.

Berenbaum, M. R. & Passoa, S. (1999). Generic Phylogeny of North American Depressariinae (Lepidoptera: Elachistidae) and Hypotheses About Coevolution. Entomological Society of America 92, 971-986.

Ø Cladistic analysis showed no evidence of congruent cladogenesis within Depressariinae. However, host shifts between unrelated host plant families, and reversions to host plant ancestors are abundant. Explanation of sequential colonization of related plant groups. Congruent cladogenesis most likely occurs within genera, not at the family or subfamily level.

Ehrlich, P. R. &. P. H. Raven (1964). Butterflies and plants: a study in coevolution. Evolution 18, 586-608.

Ø First discussion of “coevolution”, however, without explicit definition, and lists butterfly and host plant associations. Postulates an evolutionary arms race creating new chemical defense/diversification in plants.

Faeth, S. H. (1988). Plant-Mediated Interactions between Seasonal Herbivores: Enough for Evolution or Coevolution? In Chemical Mediation of Coevolution (ed. K. C. Spencer), pp. 391-414. Academic Press, New York.

Ø Overview of perspectives on the evolution of insect-plant interactions mediated by the host plant.

Farrell, B. D., C. Mitter, and D. J. Futuyma. (1992). Diversification at the insect-plant interface. Bioscience 42, 34-42.

Ø Reviews the following questions: What aspects of insect host use are evolutionary conservative? How old are the associations between extant insect taxa and plant? Is there evidence for the escape-and-radiation steps (Ehrlich and Raven)? To what extent does the macroevolution determine the current diversity and structure of insect-plant associations?

Futuyma, D. J. (1983). Evolutionary interactions among herbivorous insects and plants. In Coevolution (ed. D. J. Futuyma and M. Slatkin), pp. 207-231. Sinauer Associates Inc., Sunderland, MA.

Ø An informative chapter on the usefulness of phylogenetics and concepts on the history of insects and their host plants.

Hunter, A. F. (1995). Ecology, Life History, and Phylogeny of Outbreak and Nonoutbreak Species. In Population Dynamics: new approaches and synthesis (ed. N. Cappuccino and P. W. Price), pp. 41-64. Academic Press, San Diego.

Ø Uses the basis of phylogenetic relationships to compare life-history and ecological traits to answer an ecological question about outbreak and nonoutbreak insect species.

Janz, N. & Nylin, S. (1998). Butterflies and plants: a phylogenetic study. Evolution 52, 486-502.

Ø Focuses on mechanisms behind host shifts. Their results confirm that related butterflies feed on related plants (“evolutionary conservatism”).

Janzen, D. H. (1980). When is it coevolution? Evolution 34, 611-612.

Ø Redefines “coevolution” (Ehrlich and Raven 1964) explicitly and emphasizes the importance of reciprocity in coevolutionary relationships.

Jaremo, J., Tuomi, J., Nilsson, P. & Lennartsson, T. (1999). Plant adaptations to herbivory: mutualistic versus antagonistic coevolution. Oikos 84, 313-320.

Ø FORUM article discussing the fitness criteria in determining mutualisms in plant-herbivore systems. Explores 3 cases of plant-animal relations: mutualism, antagonism, and in between in the context of plant overcompensation

Jermy, T. (1984). Evolution of host/plant relationships. American Naturalist 124, 609-630.

Ø Discusses validity of plant-insect studies and outlines new points of view to explain evolution of various insect/host plant relationships. Makes point that many authors treat recent insect/host plant relationships as a result of coevolutionary processes, but there’s no evidence that the insect species played a role in the evolution of their plant hosts. Discusses the premises of the classic theory of insect-plant coevolution.

Mathews, J. N. A. (1994). The benefits of overcompensation and herbivory: the difference between coping with herbivores and liking them. American Naturalist 144, 528-533.

Ø Critically examines the overcompensation models of Vail (1992). Says that Vail’s predictions are conditional on the assumption that late plant reproduction depends on prior herbivory. However, the value of Vail's models is in the assumptions.

Miller, J. S. & Wenzel, J. W. (1995). Ecological characters and phylogeny. Annual Review of Entomology 40, 389-415.

Ø Supports use of phylogenetics in insect ecology to elucidate insect-host plant interactions and the evolution of mimicry and mutualisms. Describes methods, weaknesses, and alternative scenarios of cladistic results. Focuses on evolutionary scenarios of insect-plant interactions (e.g. cospeciation, colonization).

Owen, D. F. & Wiegert, R. G. (1987). Leaf eating as mutualism. In Insect Outbreaks (ed. P. a. S. Barbosa, J.C.), pp. 81-95. Academic Press.

Ø Overview of ideas on plant-herbivore relationships. Presents alternative view that plants aren’t always on the defensive and that leaf-eating may be a co-evolved mutualism between plants and their herbivores.

Powell, J. A. (1980). Evolution of larval food preferences in Microlepidoptera. Annual Review of Entomology 25, 135-159.

Ø A detailed summary of Microlepidopteran larval food preferences; a precursor to Powell, et al.

Powell, J.A., C. Mitter, and B. Farrell (1999). Evolution of larval food preferences in Lepidoptera, pp. 403-422. In, N.P. Kristensen (ed.) Lepidoptera, Moths and Butterflies Volume 1. Evolution, Systematics, and Biogeography. Handbook of Zoology Volume IV Arthropoda: Insecta. Walter deGruyter: Berlin.

Ø Uses established phylogenies to map larval feeding habits and explores the patterns. Focuses on answering questions about the origin of feeding specializations and the parallel cladogenesis of host plant lineages and the insects.

Roskam, J. C. (1985). Evolutionary patterns in gall midge-host associations (Diptera, Cecidmyiidae). Tidschr. Entomol. 128, 193-213.

Ø Interesting study of host plant associations of gall midges. The radiation of this group of specialized endophytophagous insects may be the result of sequential evolution and is demonstrated with a phylogenetic analysis.

Roughgarden, J. (1983). The theory of coevolution. In Coevolution (ed. D. Futuyma and M. Slatkin). Sinauer Associates Inc., Sunderland MA.

Ø General discussion

Thompson, J. N. (1983b). The use of ephemeral plant parts on small host plants: how Depressaria leptotaeniae (Lepidoptera: Oecophoridae) feeds on Lomatium grayi (Umbelliferae). Journal of Animal Ecology 52, 281-291.

Ø Presents an analysis of how the moth utilizes an herbaceous host plant and consequences of restricting larvae to a single plant part. Uses a paired experiment to test how the larvae fared when confined to a single umbel or to a single leaf. Specialization of phytophagous insect is expected if the resources on a single plant part are sufficient for it to complete development. Asks: When does natural selection favor small size and restriction to a single plant part?

Thompson, J. N. (1985). Patterns in coevolution. In Coevolution and Systematics (Ed. by A.R. Stone and D. L. Hawksworth). Clarendon Press, Oxford.

Ø Discusses five patterns of coevolution of Umbelliferae and insects: Ehrlich-Raven; cospeciation; mixed process coevolution; arms race analogy; and population dynamics

Thompson, J. N. (1989). Concepts in coevolution. Trends in Ecology and Evolution 4, 179-183.

Ø General discussion; Presents modes of coevolution and the kinds of species interactions associated with them

Vail, S. G. (1992). Selection for overcompensatory plant responses to herbivory: a mechanism for the evolution of the plant-herbivore mutualism. American Naturalist 139, 1-8.

Ø Presents two models to test the idea of a herbivore-driven “bet-hedging” reproductive strategy.

Weintraub, J., Lawton, J. H. & Scoble, M. J. (1995). Lithinine moths on ferns - a phylogenetic study of insect-plant interactions. Biological Journal of the Linnean Society 55, 239-250.

Ø First study where pteridophagous Lepidoptera are analysed in a phylogenetic context and contrasts the evolutionary scenarios of Mitter, et al., Thompson, Jermy. Their observed patterns support a scenario of host shifting following a single colonization event resulting in a lack of parallel cladogenesis between moth and fern phylogenies.