Skip to main content

Advertisement

SpringerLink
Log in

Chronic dryness and wetness and especially pulsed drought threaten a generalist arthropod herbivore

  • Global change ecology – original research
  • Published:
Oecologia Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

Under climate change, both wetter and drier conditions, as well as an increase in extreme events like floods or droughts are projected for many areas. So far, studies only investigate the impact of drier or wetter conditions at a single stress severity level but do not consider how different intensities and types of changes affect insect herbivores feeding on stressed plants. Further, how effects of acute stress pulses differ from milder, chronic soil moisture stress is unclear. We investigated how changing soil moisture conditions affect a generalist insect herbivore feeding on grassland plants. We transplanted multi-species sections of grassland into pots and subjected them to different intensities and durations of flooding and drying stress. We compared effects of short, extreme drought and flooding pulses against the effects of milder, but chronic stress. Constantly drier conditions decreased plant and herbivore performance at all levels of stress severity. Severe permanent wetness did not affect plant growth, but decreased pupal weight (− 23%) and survival of larvae (− 34%). Extreme pulsed drought exacerbated negative effects of chronic drying, as most larvae died before they could benefit from rewetting plants after the drought (94% mortality). Pulsed flooding did not affect plants or larval development more than chronic severe wetness. Our findings imply that plant stress negatively affects generalist chewing herbivores, even with mixed diets. Both drier and severely wet, but not mildly wetter conditions, will reduce survival of some species. Especially, extreme droughts appear to have strong negative effects on generalist grassland herbivores.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Fig. 1
Fig. 2
Fig. 3
Fig. 4

Similar content being viewed by others

References

  • Angert AL, LaDeau SL, Ostfeld RS (2013) Climate change and species interactions: ways forward. Ann N Y Acad Sci 1297:1–7

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Awmack CS, Leather SR (2002) Host plant quality and fecundity in Herbivorous insects. Annu Rev Entomol 47:817–844

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Bates D, Maechler M, Bolker B, Walker S (2015) Fitting linear mixed-effects models using lme4. J Stat Softw 67:1–48

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Bernays EA, Bright KL, Gonzalez N, Angel J (1994) Dietary mixing in a generalist herbivore: tests of two hypotheses. Ecology 75:1997–2006

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Bretz F, Hothorn T, Westfall P (2008) Multiple comparison procedures in linear models. Compstat 2008:423–431

    Google Scholar 

  • Brown ES, Dewhurst CF (1975) The genus Spodoptera (Lepidoptera, Noctuidae) in Africa and near east. Bull Entomol Res 65:221–262

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Crawley M (2009) The R book. Wiley, Chichester

    Google Scholar 

  • Davalos A, Blossey B (2010) The effects of flooding, plant traits, and predation on purple loosestrife leaf-beetles. Entomol Exp Appl 135:85–95

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • de Bruyn L, Scheirs J, Verhagen R (2002) Nutrient stress, host plant quality and herbivore performance of a leaf-mining fly on grass. Oecologia 130:594–599

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • English-Loeb G, Stout MJ, Duffey SS (1997) Drought stress in tomatoes: changes in plant chemistry and potential nonlinear consequences for insect herbivores. Oikos 79:456–468

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Franzke A, Reinhold K (2011) Stressing food plants by altering water availability affects grasshopper performance. Ecosphere 2:1–13

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Gutbrodt B, Mody K, Dorn S (2011) Drought changes plant chemistry and causes contrasting responses in lepidopteran herbivores. Oikos 120:1732–1740

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Gutbrodt B, Dorn S, Mody K (2012) Drought stress affects constitutive, but not induced herbivore resistance in apple plants. Arthropod Plant Interact 6:171–179

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • He M, Dijkstra FA (2014) Drought effect on plant nitrogen and phosphorus: a meta-analysis. New Phytol 204:924–931

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Herms DA, Mattson WJ (1992) The dilemma of plants: to grow or defend. Quart Rev Biol 67:283–335

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Huberty AF, Denno RF (2004) Plant water stress and its consequences for herbivorous insects: a new synthesis. Ecology 85:1383–1398

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Inbar M, Doostdar H, Mayer RT (2001) Suitability of stressed and vigorous plants to various insect herbivores. Oikos 94:228–235

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • IPCC (2012) Summary for policymakers. In: IPCC (ed) Managing the risks of extreme events and disasters to advance climate change adaptation. A special report of Working Groups I and II of the Intergovernmental Panel on climate change. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, New York, pp 1–19

    Google Scholar 

  • IPCC (2014) Climate change 2014: synthesis report. Contribution of Working Groups I, II and III to the Fifth assessment report of the Intergovernmental Panel on climate change. IPCC, Geneva

    Google Scholar 

  • Khan MAM, Ulrichs C, Mewis I (2010) Influence of water stress on the glucosinolate profile of Brassica oleracea var. Italic and the performance of Brevicoryne brassicae and Myzus persicae. Entomol Exp Appl 137:229–236

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Khan MAM, Ulrichs C, Mewis I (2011) Effect of water stress and aphid herbivory on flavonoids in broccoli (Brassica oleracea var. italica Plenck). J Appl Bot 84:178–182

    CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Koricheva J, Larsson S, Haukioja E (1998) Insect performance on experimentally stressed woody plants: a meta-analysis. Ann Rev Entomol 43:195–216

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Kuznetsova A, Brockhoff PB, Christensen RHB (2017) lmerTest package: tests in linear mixed effects models. J Stat Softw 82:1–26

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Leingärtner A, Hoiss B, Krauss J, Steffan-Dewenter S (2014) Combined events and elevation on nutritional quality and herbivory of alpine plants. PLoS One 9:e93881

    Article  CAS  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  • Lenhart PA, Eubanks MD, Behmer ST (2015) Water stress in grasslands: dynamic responses of plants and insect herbivores. Oikos 124:381–390

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Lopez-Vaamonde C (2006) Spodoptera littoralis. Delivering alien invasive species inventories for Europe. http://www.europe-aliens.org/pdf/Spodoptera_littoralis.pdf. Accessed 01 Aug 2018

  • Mattson WJ, Haack RA (1987) Role of drought in outbreaks of plant-eating insects. Bioscience 37:110–118

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Mody K, Eichenberger D, Dorn S (2009) Stress magnitude matters: different intensities of pulsed water stress produce non-monotonic resistance responses of host plants to insect herbivores. Ecol Entomol 34:133–143

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Morales M (2012) sciplot: Scientific graphing functions for factorial designs. R package version 1.1-0 (with code developed by the R Development Core Team, with general advice from the R-Help listserv community, especially Duncan Murdoch). https://cran.r-project.org/package=sciplot. Accessed 12 Aug 2018

  • Orth R, Zscheischler J, Seneviratne SI (2016) Record dry summer in 2015 challenges precipitation projections in Central Europe. Nat Sci Rep 6:28334

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Pineda A, Pangesti N, Soler R, van Dam NM, van Loon JJA, Dicke M (2016) Negative impact of drought stress on a generalist leaf chewer and a phloem feeder is associated with, but not explained by an increase in herbivore-induced indole glucosinolates. Environ Exp Bot 123:88–97

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Price PW (1991) The plant vigor hypothesis and herbivore attack. Oikos 62:244–251

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Prill N, Bullock JM, van Dam NM, Leimu R (2014) Loss of heterosis and family-dependent inbreeding depression in plant performance and resistance against multiple herbivores under drought stress. J Ecol 102:1497–1505

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Ranger CM, Reding ME, Schultz PB, Oliver JB (2013) Influence of flood-stress on ambrosia beetle host-selection and implication for their management in a changing climate. Agric For Entomol 15:56–64

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Sconiers WB, Eubanks MD (2017) Not all droughts are created equal? The effects of stress severity on insect herbivore abundance. Arthropod Plant Interact 11:45–60

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Sipura M, Ikonen A, Tahvanainen J, Roininen H (2002) Why does the leaf beetle Galerucella lineola F. attack wetland willows? Ecology 83:3393–3407

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Valim JOS, Teixeira NC, Santos NA, Oliveira MGA, Campos WG (2016) Drought-induced acclimatization of a fast-growing plant decreases insect performance in leaf-chewing and sap-sucking guilds. Arthropod Plant Interact 10:351–363

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Walter J, Hein R, Auge H, Beierkuhnlein C, Loeffler S, Reifenrath K, Schaedler M, Weber M, Jentsch A (2012) How do extreme drought and plant community composition affect host plant metabolites and herbivore performance? Anthropod Plant Interact 6:15–25

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Weldegergis BT, Zhu F, Poelman EH, Dicke M (2015) Drought stress affects plant metabolites and herbivore preference but not host location by its parasitoids. Oecologia 177:701–713

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Wetter-bw.de. (2017) Agrarmeteorologie Baden-Württemberg. http://www.wetter-bw.de/Internet/AM/inetcntrBw.nsf/cuhome.xsp?src=GSSGT0B084&p1=title%3DHohenheim%7E%7Eurl%3D%2FInternet%2FAM%2FNotesBwAM.nsf%2FXP_ABC_All%2F85F6BAA2D299DB4AC1257CA7003D9AB9%3FOpenDocument&p3=186397Z4DJ. Accessed 06 Aug 2017

  • White TCR (1984) The abundance of invertebrate herbivores in relation to the availability of nitrogen in stressed food plants. Oecologia 63:90–91

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

Download references

Acknowledgements

We thank Dr. Axel Mithöfer and Angelika Berg from the Max-Planck-Institute for Chemical Ecology, Jena, Germany for providing eggs of S. littoralis. We further thank our interns Xu Wei, Dominika Krzysztofik and Martin Bartels Awortwe for their support in maintaining and conducting the experiment and the DAAD (IAESTE) for organising their stay with us. This work was funded by the German Research Foundation (Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft; DFG-WA-3442/2-1). All applicable institutional and national guidelines for the care and use of animals were followed.

Author information

Author notes

  1. Bibishan Rai and Julia Walter contributed equally to writing the manuscript.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. University of Freiburg, Faculty of Environment and Natural Resources, Nature Conservation and Landscape Ecology, Tennenbacher Str. 4, 79106, Freiburg, Germany

    Bibishan Rai & Alexandra Maria Klein

  2. Institute of Landscape and Plant Ecology, University of Hohenheim, August-von-Hartmann-Str. 3, 70599, Stuttgart, Germany

    Julia Walter

Authors
  1. Bibishan Rai
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Alexandra Maria Klein
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  3. Julia Walter
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Contributions

JW conceived and designed the experiments and formulated the idea. BR performed the feeding trials and JW organised the plant experiment. BR and JW analysed the data and contributed equally to writing the manuscript. AMK provided editorial advice to substantially alter and improve the manuscript.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Julia Walter.

Additional information

Communicated by Evan Siemann.

Electronic supplementary material

Below is the link to the electronic supplementary material.

Supplementary material 1 (DOCX 3479 kb)

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Rai, B., Klein, A.M. & Walter, J. Chronic dryness and wetness and especially pulsed drought threaten a generalist arthropod herbivore. Oecologia 188, 931–943 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00442-018-4255-7

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00442-018-4255-7

Keywords

Search

Navigation