Essay On Native Herbivores

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In nature, insect herbivores must discriminate between suitable and unsuitable plants for their own nutrition and/or that of their progeny. The recognition of suitable oviposition and feeding cues in native plant-insect food webs has been studied over many years and a wealth of data has been generated (4, 19). Moreover, it has long been established that the nutritional quality of plant tissues, as mediated by concentrations of primary and secondary plant metabolites, as well as by morphological characteristics may significantly affect the feeding behavior and development of native herbivores (4).

Based on a growing number of studies, there is no clear consensus regarding how well native herbivores perform on invasive plant species. In some studies, invasive plants are highly suitable as hosts and insects achieve high potential fitness (61, 71), whereas in other studies the invasive plants are toxic to native herbivores (38, 88, 135). In some instances, survival of insect herbivores is low on invasive plants (38, 61, 88, 107), whereas in others survival is high but development time is extended and/or adult body mass is reduced (18, 148).

The ability of native herbivores to exploit invasive plants also often differs between specialists and generalists. For example, the generalists Mamestra brassicae and Spodoptera littoralis developed well on the invasive crucifer Bunias orientalis, whereas several crucifer specialists either perished or had very low fitness on this plant species (48, 61, 107). In a study in the United States several generalist herbivores grew faster and survived better on native black cherry than on 16 other species of trees or forbs (135). In contrast generalist and specialist chrysomelid beetles exhibited simi...

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...e native insects by masking the odors of native plants, particularly if the invader has a volatile profile that is similar to that of native species in the community. Assuming that an invasive plant might be initially less susceptible to herbivore attack than its native neighbors, we might predict that host preference behavior of herbivores and parasitoids might change based on qualitative and quantitative differences in the chemical induction of the invader compared with the more heavily-damaged natives. Moreover, natural enemies will often have to choose between plants containing hosts/prey and plants infested with only non-host/prey species. Parasitoids respond to complex volatile blends (142), and the establishment of an invasive plant into a native community may disrupt this process, with negative effects on the ability of the parasitoid female to locate hosts.

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