ESJ58 シンポジウム S03-2
Masahiro Nakamura (Hokkaido University)
Indirect effects occur when the impact of one species on another requires the presence of a third species. On terrestrial ecosystems, indirect effects exist among herbivorous insects mediated by host plants. Herbivory by one species often induces morphological, phenological, and chemical changes in the host plant that, in turn, alter the availability of food resources for other species that feed at different times or on different parts of the plant. In this presentation, I mainly focused on the roles of leaf shelters and compensatory plant regrowth that act as mediators of plant-mediated indirect effects. I expected that such mediators would initiate positive effects on herbivore insects by enhancing the availability of habitat and/or food resources. These studies are individual approaches, which focused on processes and mechanisms acting on a relatively small subset of interactive species.