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Cook-Patton SC, Maynard L, Lemoine NP, et al. Cascading effects of a highly specialized beech-aphid-fungus interaction on forest regeneration. PeerJ. 2014;2:e442doi: 10.7717/peerj.442.
Cook-Patton, S. C., Maynard, L., Lemoine, N. P., Shue, J., & Parker, J. D. (2014). Cascading effects of a highly specialized beech-aphid-fungus interaction on forest regeneration. PeerJ, 2e442. https://doi.org/10.7717/peerj.442
Cook-Patton, Susan C, et al. "Cascading effects of a highly specialized beech-aphid-fungus interaction on forest regeneration." PeerJ vol. 2 (2014): e442. doi: https://doi.org/10.7717/peerj.442
Cook-Patton SC, Maynard L, Lemoine NP, Shue J, Parker JD. Cascading effects of a highly specialized beech-aphid-fungus interaction on forest regeneration. PeerJ. 2014 Jun 17;2:e442. doi: 10.7717/peerj.442. eCollection 2014. PMID: 25024911; PMCID: PMC4081282.
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PeerJ. 2014 Jun 17;2:e442. doi: 10.7717/peerj.442. eCollection 2014.

Cascading effects of a highly specialized beech-aphid-fungus interaction on forest regeneration.

PeerJ

Susan C Cook-Patton, Lauren Maynard, Nathan P Lemoine, Jessica Shue, John D Parker

Affiliations

  1. Smithsonian Environmental Research Center , Edgewater, MD , United States.
  2. Florida International University , United States.

PMID: 25024911 PMCID: PMC4081282 DOI: 10.7717/peerj.442

Abstract

Specialist herbivores are thought to often enhance or maintain plant diversity within ecosystems, because they prevent their host species from becoming competitively dominant. In contrast, specialist herbivores are not generally expected to have negative impacts on non-hosts. However, we describe a cascade of indirect interactions whereby a specialist sooty mold (Scorias spongiosa) colonizes the honeydew from a specialist beech aphid (Grylloprociphilus imbricator), ultimately decreasing the survival of seedlings beneath American beech trees (Fagus grandifolia). A common garden experiment indicated that this mortality resulted from moldy honeydew impairing leaf function rather than from chemical or microbial changes to the soil. In addition, aphids consistently and repeatedly colonized the same large beech trees, suggesting that seedling-depauperate islands may form beneath these trees. Thus this highly specialized three-way beech-aphid-fungus interaction has the potential to negatively impact local forest regeneration via a cascade of indirect effects.

Keywords: Fagus grandifolia; Forest regeneration; Grylloprociphilus imbricator; Indirect interactions; Scorias spongiosa; Seedling survival; Specialist herbivore

References

  1. Ecology. 2008 Sep;89(9):2399-406 - PubMed
  2. Am Nat. 2012 Mar;179(3):303-14 - PubMed
  3. Fungal Divers. 2011 Dec 1;51(1):103-134 - PubMed
  4. Annu Rev Entomol. 2014;59:13-30 - PubMed

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