Low host specificity and abundance of frugivorous lepidoptera in the lowland rain forests of Papua New Guinea

PLoS One. 2017 Feb 23;12(2):e0171843. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0171843. eCollection 2017.

Abstract

We studied a community of frugivorous Lepidoptera in the lowland rainforest of Papua New Guinea. Rearing revealed 122 species represented by 1,720 individuals from 326 woody plant species. Only fruits from 52% (171) of the plant species sampled were attacked. On average, Lepidoptera were reared from 1 in 89 fruits and a kilogram of fruit was attacked by 1.01 individuals. Host specificity of Lepidoptera was notably low: 69% (33) of species attacked plants from >1 family, 8% (4) fed on single family, 6% (3) on single genus and 17% (8) were monophagous. The average kilogram of fruits was infested by 0.81 individual from generalist species (defined here as feeding on >1 plant genus) and 0.07 individual from specialist species (feeding on a single host or congeneric hosts). Lepidoptera preferred smaller fruits with both smaller mesocarp and seeds. Large-seeded fruits with thin mesocarp tended to host specialist species whereas those with thick, fleshy mesocarp were often infested with both specialist and generalist species. The very low incidence of seed damage suggests that pre-dispersal seed predation by Lepidoptera does not play a major role in regulating plant populations via density-dependent mortality processes outlined by the Janzen-Connell hypothesis.

MeSH terms

  • Animals
  • Fruit / parasitology
  • Fruit / physiology
  • Herbivory*
  • Host Specificity
  • Lepidoptera / physiology*
  • Papua New Guinea
  • Plant Diseases / parasitology
  • Plant Physiological Phenomena
  • Plants / parasitology*
  • Rainforest*
  • Seeds / parasitology
  • Seeds / physiology

Grants and funding

This work was supported by the Darwin Initiative for the survival of species 22-002, (http://www.darwininitiative.org.uk/); Czech Science Foundation grant GA13-09979S, (https://gacr.cz/en/); U.S. National Science Foundation grant DEB 0841885, (http://www.nsf.gov/); and the Biodiversity Institute of Ontario/iBOL. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.