title: The impact of plant chemical diversity on plant-herbivore interactions at the community level.
abstract: Understanding the role of diversity in ecosystem processes and species interactions is a central goal of ecology. For plant-herbivore interactions, it has been hypothesized that when plant species diversity is reduced, loss of plant biomass to herbivores increases. Although long-standing, this hypothesis has received mixed support. Increasing plant chemical diversity with increasing plant taxonomic diversity is likely to be important for plant-herbivore interactions at the community level, but the role of chemical diversity is unexplored. Here we assess the effect of volatile chemical diversity on patterns of herbivore damage in naturally occurring patches of Piper (Piperaceae) shrubs in a Costa Rican lowland wet forest. Volatile chemical diversity negatively affected total, specialist, and generalist herbivore damage. Furthermore, there were differences between the effects of high-volatility and low-volatility chemical diversity on herbivore damage. High-volatility diversity reduced specialist herbivory, while low-volatility diversity reduced generalist herbivory. Our data suggest that, although increased plant diversity is expected to reduce average herbivore damage, this pattern is likely mediated by the diversity of defensive compounds and general classes of anti-herbivore traits, as well as the degree of specialization of the herbivores attacking those plants.
authors.affiliation: Department of Integrative Biology, University of California-Berkeley, 1005 Valley Life Sciences Building #3140, Berkeley, CA, 94720-3140, USA. diegosalazar@berkeley.edu.|Department of Biology and the Whitney R. Harris World Ecology Center, One University Boulevard, University of Missouri-St. Louis, St. Louis, MO, 63121, USA. diegosalazar@berkeley.edu.
authors.forename: Diego
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Salazar
authors.affiliation: Facultad de Ciencias Basicas, Universidad Militar Nueva Granada, Bogota, Colombia.
authors.forename: Alejandra
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Jaramillo
authors.affiliation: Department of Biology and the Whitney R. Harris World Ecology Center, One University Boulevard, University of Missouri-St. Louis, St. Louis, MO, 63121, USA.
authors.forename: Robert J
authors.initials: RJ
authors.lastname: Marquis
mesh_terms: D044822:Biodiversity; D017753:Ecosystem; D065928:Forests; D060434:Herbivory; D010944:Plants
keywords: Herbivory; La Selva; Piper; Plant interactions; Volatile compounds