• DOI:10.1007/978-1-4612-4712-8_5
• Corpus ID: 82651706

Ecology and Evolution of Leafhopper—Grass Host Relationships in North American Grasslands

@inproceedings{Whitcomb1987EcologyAE,
  title={Ecology and Evolution of Leafhopper—Grass Host Relationships in North American Grasslands},
  author={Robert F. Whitcomb and James P. Kramer and Michael E. Coan and Andrew L. Hicks},
  year={1987}
}

• R. F. Whitcomb, J. P. Kramer, +1 author A. Hicks
• Published 1987
• Biology

In this chapter we summarize current knowledge concerning ecological and evolutionary relationships between leafhoppers and North American grasslands. Although the treatment synthesizes information that has accumulated over a half century, the emphasis is on recent work in our own laboratory. Despite early recognition of the basic importance of host selection in insect ecology (27, 38), efforts to synthesize this information have been fragmentary because the North American grasslands that existed before European colonization were immense in size and complexity. The cicadellids that evolved with them have a similarly immense diversity of host relationships and life history strategies. The physical intermixing of prairie grasses and forbs is also complex, making it difficult to collect unambiguous host records, as evidenced by previous studies on cicadellid—grass relationships (31–33, 60, 63–65, 99–102, 144, 145). Once satisfactory methods were found, the task of gathering sufficient information proved to be time-consuming. Thus, even a preliminary analysis of grassland—insect communities has required many years of study.