The global distribution of diet breadth in insect herbivores

• DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1423042112
• Publication Date: 2014-12-30T10:04:50Z
• Authors: Matthew L. Forister; Vojtech Novotny; Anna K. Panorska; Leontine Baje; Yves Basset; Philip T. Butterill; Lukas Cizek; Phyllis D. Coley; Francesca Dem; Ivone R. Diniz; Pavel Drozd; Mark Fox; Andrea E. Glassmire; Rebecca Hazen; Jan Hrcek; Joshua P. Jahner; Ondrej Kaman; Tomasz J. Kozubowski; Thomas A. Kursar; Owen T. Lewis; John Lill; Robert J. Marquis; Scott E. Miller; Helena C. Morais; Masashi Murakami; Herbert Nickel; Nicholas A. Pardikes; Robert E. Ricklefs; Michael S. Singer; Angela M. Smilanich; John O. Stireman; Santiago Villamar...; Stepan Vodka; Martin Volf; David L. Wagner; Thomas Walla; George D. Weiblen; Lee A. Dyer
• Keywords: Coevolution; Community

Understanding variation in resource specialization is important for progress on issues that include coevolution, community assembly, ecosystem processes, and the latitudinal gradient of species richness. Herbivorous insects are useful models studying specialization, interaction between plants herbivorous one most common consequential ecological associations planet. However, uncertainty persists regarding fundamental features herbivore diet breadth, including its relationship to latitude plant Here, we use a global dataset investigate host range over 7,500 insect covering wide taxonomic breadth interacting with more than 2,000 165 families. We ask whether relatively specialized generalized herbivores represent dichotomy rather continuum from few many families attacked changes increasing richness toward tropics. Across geographic regions subsets data, find distribution fit well by discrete, truncated Pareto power law characterized predominance long, thin tail species. Both phylogenetic distributions shift globally latitude, consistent higher frequency tropical regions. also diverse lineages support assemblages diversity contributes but does not fully explain specialization.