Elevation-Dependent Temperature Trends in the Rocky Mountain Front Range: Changes over a 56- and 20-Year Record
- C. McGuire, C. Nufio, M. Bowers, R. Guralnick
- Environmental SciencePLoS ONE
- 6 September 2012
Temperature trends from five long-term weather stations along a 2077-meter elevational transect in the Rocky Mountain Front Range of Colorado, USA are presented and it is shown that warming signals were strongest at mid-elevations over both temporal scales.
Immunological cost of chemical defence and the evolution of herbivore diet breadth.
- A. Smilanich, L. Dyer, J. Chambers, M. Bowers
- Environmental ScienceEcology Letters
- 1 July 2009
Results indicate that larvae feeding on plants with high concentrations of toxins might be more poorly defended against parasitoids, while at the same time being better defended against predators, suggesting that predators and parasitoid can exert different selective pressures on the evolution of herbivore diet breadth.
The Effects of Enriched Carbon Dioxide Atmospheres on Plant—Insect Herbivore Interactions
The results indicate that interactions between plants and herbivorous insects will be modified under the predicted CO2 conditions of the 21st century.
EFFECTS OF PLANT AGE, GENOTYPE, AND HERBIVORY ON PLANTAGO PERFORMANCE AND CHEMISTRY'
In an experimental garden at Binghamton, New York, the effects of plant age, plant genotype, and herbivory by generalist or specialist caterpillars on Plantago lanceolata showed that herbvory had little effect on plant performance, and there was no difference by the specialist Junonia coenia Hibner (Nymphalidae), compared to the generalist Spilosoma congrua Wlk.
Genetic variation in defensive chemistry in Plantago lanceolata (Plantaginaceae) and its effect on the specialist herbivore Junonia coenia (Nymphalidae)
- L. S. Adler, J. Schmitt, M. Bowers
- Environmental ScienceOecologia
- 2004
Although specialist herbivores may respond to defensive chemicals as qualitative feeding stimulants, they do not necessarily have higher fitness on plant genotypes containing higher concentrations of these chemicals.
VARIATION IN FOOD QUALITY AND TEMPERATURE CONSTRAIN FORAGING OF GREGARIOUS CATERPILLARS
In the absence of predators, in which case larvae eat new leaves, bask, and remain aggregated, the larvae can grow twice as fast and attain more biomass per instar than solitary larvae eating mature leaves in the shade, which is often the case when they avoid predators.
Gut microbes may facilitate insect herbivory of chemically defended plants
The “gut microbial facilitation hypothesis” is outlined, which proposes that variation among herbivores in their ability to consume chemically defended plants can be due, in part, to variation in their associated microbial communities.
Soil nutrient effects on oviposition preference, larval performance, and chemical defense of a specialist insect herbivore
Results indicate that females may be making sub-optimal oviposition decisions under a nutrient-enriched regime, when predators are present, and these interactions between female preference, larval performance, and larval chemical defense may result in long-term changes in population dynamics and persistence of specialist insects.
Early stage of host range expansion by a specialist herbivore, Euphydryas phaeton (Nymphalidae)
- M. Bowers, N. Stamp, S. Collinge
- Environmental Science
- 1 April 1992
The shift of some populations of E. phaeton onto plantain is most likely a function of several ecological factors rather than genetic differentiation between populations using turtlehead and plantain.
The Effect of Nutrients and Enriched CO2 Environments on Production of Carbon-Based Allelochemicals in Plantago: A Test of the Carbon/Nutrient Balance Hypothesis
It is suggested that augmented substrate concentrations (i.e., excess carbohydrates) are a necessary but insufficient trigger for increased secondary metabolism; instead, hormonal and/or direct physical cues (such as light) may be essential to synthesize or activate the appropriate enzyme systems.
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