How many species of host-specific insects feed on a species of tropical tree?

Abstract

The assumptions on the host specificity of beetles that led Terry Erwin to suggest that there may be over 30 million arthropod species were tested for 10 species of trees and their insect associates at a rainforest site in Papua New Guinea. The data included 391 species and 4696 individuals of herbivorous beetles collected during a one year period using hand collecting, beating, branch clipping, intercept flight traps and pyrethrum knockdown. Insect host specificity was assessed by feeding trials in captivity. The data suggest that between 23 and 37 monophagous leaf-feeding species are most likely to be present in this system, whereas Erwin's method yields an estimate of 138 monophagous species. The major factors responsible for the discrepancy between our observations and Erwin's assumptions appears to be (a) the importance of transient species; (b) the insect fauna that is shared among tree species; (c) some generalist wood-eating species may inflate the apparent species richness of leaf-feeding beetles; and (d) the proportion of specialist species varies significantly among tree species. We conclude that studies reporting the proportion of specialist insect herbivores associated with particular tropical tree species will yield only a portion of the information needed to estimate global arthropod species richness, but may be useful for elucidating certain aspects of feed-web ecology in tropical rain forests.