Herbivorous insect species in the tree canopy of a relict South African forest

Abstract

Abstract. The herbivorous insects on twelve species of evergreen broadleafed trees were repeatedly sampled over a period of 11 months in a small relict forest on the east coast of South Africa. This extraordinarily speciose forest patch has an unusually high proportion of endemic tree species, some of which are extremely rare. The insect herbivore fauna (number of species) seems to be markedly depauperate compared to that reported on native, broadleafed trees from other parts of the world. Some possible reasons for this are discussed. The total number of herbivorous insect species on each tree species was strongly correlated with the local relative abundance of the host plant species. There was no relationship between the total number of insect herbivore species on each tree species and the relative taxonomic isolation of the trees. The proportion of seemingly unique (= specialist) herbivorous insect species (i.e. those that occurred on one tree species only) was greatest on taxonomically isolated trees. A fundamental deficiency in the interpretation of the data in this study, and of many other similar studies that report on the number of insect species on plants, is discussed, namely the lack of clarity on the closeness of the association between individual insect herbivore species and their respective host plants.