Foliar damage, parasitoids and indirect competition: a test using herbivores of birch |
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Authors: | BRADFORD A. HAWKINS |
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Affiliation: | Department of Biology, University of York |
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Abstract: | ABSTRACT. - 1 The hypothesis that leaf-chewing caterpillars and leaf miners indirectly compete via the influence of foliar damage on parasitoids was experimentally tested using the leaf miner Coleophora serratella (L.) and a complex of folivorous caterpillars on birch.
- 2 Separate experiments tested the effects of manipulating artificial or caterpillar-induced leaf damage on parasitism of leaf miners at several spatial scales.
- 3 Parasitism of C. serratella by specialist and generalist parasitoids was independent of the extent of either collateral or leaf-miner damage, whether experimentally or naturally induced.
- 4 Support in the literature for the hypothesis is restricted to a single case, and only on a limited spatial scale; thus, the idea that collateral damage directs parasitoid-mediated competition among herbivores remains highly speculative.
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Keywords: | Indirect competition leaf damage parasitoids leaf miners Coleophora birch |
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