Abstract
Insect herbivores have the potential to change both physical and chemical traits of their host plant. Although the impacts of herbivores on their hosts have been widely studied, experiments assessing changes in multiple leaf traits or functions simultaneously are still rare. We experimentally tested whether herbivory by winter moth (Operophtera brumata) caterpillars and mechanical leaf wounding changed leaf mass per area, leaf area, leaf carbon and nitrogen content, and the concentrations of 27 polyphenol compounds on oak (Quercus robur) leaves. To investigate how potential changes in the studied traits affect leaf functioning, we related the traits to the rates of leaf photosynthesis and respiration. Overall, we did not detect any clear effects of herbivory or mechanical leaf damage on the chemical or physical leaf traits, despite clear effect of herbivory on photosynthesis. Rather, the trait variation was primarily driven by variation between individual trees. Only leaf nitrogen content and a subset of the studied polyphenol compounds correlated with photosynthesis and leaf respiration. Our results suggest that in our study system, abiotic conditions related to the growth location, variation between tree individuals, and seasonal trends in plant physiology are more important than herbivory in determining the distribution and composition of leaf chemical and structural traits.
Highlights
Insect herbivores are one of the most abundant groups of organisms on Earth, and folivory is one of the most common feeding strategies used by these insects [1,2]
Simulations to assess whether treatment effects were masked by a small sample size (n = 10 trees) indicated that larger sample sizes would have been unlikely to result in significant differences between the treatments for LM, flavonol diversity and three of the most common polyphenol compounds
We tested whether experimentally manipulated herbivory and mechanical leaf damage affect a number of chemical and structural leaf traits, whether these traits correlate with photosynthesis, and whether leaf chemistry correlates with leaf respiration
Summary
Insect herbivores are one of the most abundant groups of organisms on Earth, and folivory is one of the most common feeding strategies used by these insects [1,2]. The effects of caterpillar herbivory on oak leaf traits funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript
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