Fire affects galling insect communities through vegetation changes in a subtropical seasonally semiarid forest

KUZMANICH, NICOLÁS; GIORGIS, MELISA A.; SALVO, ADRIANA

ECOLOGICAL ENTOMOLOGY

WILEY-BLACKWELL PUBLISHING, INC

Año: 2022

0307-6946

1. Fire is one of the main factors shaping vegetation characteristics around the world,with deep and complex effects on higher levels of the food web and ecosystemfunctioning. Specialist insects tend to be more vulnerable to fire than generalistsdue to their higher dependency on host plants; however, fire effects on specialistinsects are still not clearly known.2. Our aim was to understand how fire-induced changes in plant richness and floristiccomposition modulate community features of galling insects under different firescenarios. Specifically, we address the following questions: Are changes in gallinginsect richness and herbivory explained by the variation in plant richness and floristiccomposition under different fire scenarios? Are species composition of vegetationand galling insect communities coupled under different fire scenarios?3. Species richness of plant and galling insect communities was higher in burned thanin unburned plots, but the highest species richness was observed under differentfire scenarios in both communities. Galling insect richness was better predicted byfloristic composition than plant richness. Herbivory was similar under different firescenarios and weakly related to plant richness and composition. Species compositionof vegetation and galling insect communities was strongly coupled across differentfire scenarios.4. The characteristics of galling insect communities were strongly affected by firethrough vegetation changes, and were better explained by floristic compositionthan by plant richness. Our results highlight the importance of selecting areas underdifferent fire scenarios to maximise biodiversity conservation.