Preferences of six leaf beetle species among qualitatively different leaf age classes of three Salicaceous host species |
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Authors: | Arsi Ikonen |
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Institution: | (1) University of Joensuu, Department of Biology, P.O. Box 111, FIN-80101 Joensuu, Finland, FI |
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Abstract: | Summary. As Salicaceous plants produce new leaves for a prolonged period of time, they expose a wide range of differentially aged
leaves to herbivores during the growing season. In this work, I show that young leaves of three Salicaceous species, Populus tremula L., Salix phylicifolia L. and S. pentandra L., contain more nitrogen than conspecific old leaves. In P. tremula and S. pentandra young leaves also contained more low-molecular weight secondary compounds, phenolic glucosides. Leaves of S. phylicifolia did not contain phenolic glucosides in detectable amounts. Furthermore, in P. tremula and S. pentandra young leaves contained less polymeric digestability-reducing phenolics, condensed tannins, than old leaves. In S. phylicifolia, higher concentrations of condensed tannins were found in young leaves. In laboratory feeding trials with six leaf beetle
species, young leaves of the studied plants were invariably preferred in all tested herbivore × host species combinations.
In particular, it is remarkable that three leaf beetle species with known different overall relationships to phenolic glucosides
equally preferred more glucoside-containing young S. pentandra leaves over conspecific old ones. Four beetle species were found to prefer young leaves of S. phylicifolia despite the higher content of condensed tannins in young leaves. These results indicate that the general preference of leaf
beetles for young leaves of Salicaceous plants probably does not primarily result from variable distribution of secondary
compounds. Apparently, the preference for young leaves is fundamentally due to variation in leaf nutritive traits, such as
nitrogen content.
Received 9 February 2001. |
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Keywords: | , Chrysomelidae —,Populus—,Salix—, herbivory —, intra-plant variation —, condensed tannins —, nitrogen —, phenolic glucosides |
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