Insects' Trophic Interactions in Non-Native Environments

(Swiss Federal Institute of Aquatic Science and Technology Eawag, July 02, 2013)

Researchers at Cornell University and Eawag discovered a general and flexible method to understand how insects may use non-native plants in their diet. The method could accurately predict the use of >400 non-native plants as larval hostplants by 900 different herbivorous butterfly and moth species native to Europe. The specificity and incidence of interactions between newly introduced plants and the native insect population are important for two main reasons: On the one hand, native insects can limit the success of unwanted invasive plants, on the other hand they can also cause economic damage to introduced crops.