Birds as potential suppressing agents of eucalypt plantations insect pests

ABSTRACT: Eucalyptus L'Hér. plantations are among the most widespread forest plantations and can be damaged by a wide diversity of insect pests. Birds are known to play key roles in top-down control of insect pests. However, virtually nothing is known regarding the interaction of these animals and eucalypt associated insects. We developed a molecular gut-content assay to detect predation on three of the most widespread eucalypt pests, Gonipterus platensis Marelli (Coleoptera: Curculionidae), Ctenarytaina spatulata Taylor (Hemiptera: Aphalaridae), and C. eucalypti (Maskell, 1890) and one parasitoid, Anaphes nitens (Girault) (Hymenoptera: Mymaridae). We were interested in understanding the potential role of birds as suppressing agents of Eucalyptus insect pests and the bird traits driving the predation of those insects. For this, we analysed 294 fresh faecal samples from 29 bird species. We detected the presence of Eucalyptus insects in 23% of the samples. We found no relationship between the local abundance of the target pests and their consumption rate by birds, except for adults of G. platensis, that were positively correlated with predation rate. We also found that A. nitens is more often predated by birds that are not mainly insectivorous but the predation of other eucalypt insects was not affected by either bird body size, main diet type or foraging strata. We show that bird communities are feeding on several eucalypt pests, and seem to predate G. platensis more often than its main antagonist (A. nitens), suggesting an overall negative effect of birds on Eucalyptus insect pests.

ORGANISM(S): bird eucalyptuus globulus arthropd

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PROVIDER: S-BSST874 | biostudies-other |

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-other