Herbivory related data sets

PROJECT DESCRIPTION: Long-term experiments associated with herbivory, a process which under certain circumstances may be an important regulator of detrital processing, has started at El Verde only since 2002. In addition to continuing long-term vegetation measurements will be conducted to determine long-term patterns of herbivory in two ways. As in most tropical forests, herbivores mainly eat young leaves (Coley & Barone 1996), which flush during May and June in the tabonuco forest or following disturbance (Angulo-Sandoval & Aide 2000). We will measure percent herbivory on new leaves of focal species marked each year in May and June. The second measurement will be of inputs of green leaf litter and insect frass to the forest floor. These measures will be used to gauge the changes in rates of herbivory during recovery from disturbance, with the ultimate goal of evaluating the role of herbivory in succession.

In addition, herbivory manipulations (autotroph-based food web) will be conducted within the main treatments of the Canopy Trimming Experiment. This experiment will employ small-scale mesocosms and removal of organisms to isolate the potential effects of food web components thought to influence ecosystem processes. Because of the intense maintenance requirements of these manipulations, they will be conducted for only two years.

Currently the following cross-site project is conducted at LUQ: "Canopy herbivory and soil processes in a temperate and tropical forest".

Three short term experiments have been conducted at Luquillo on herbivory: one to determine the importance of food availability on herbivory, leaf phenology and leaf damage; another to dermine the effect of group feeding for a specific species, and a last one to determine the effect of plant density on herbivory.