Are Current Trophic Dynamics Models Worth Their Salt? The Relative Roles of Top-Down and Bottom-Up Effects Along a Salinity Gradient in a Florida Salt Marsh.

University Of South Florida, Tampa FL

Investigators

Abstract

This proposal focuses on testing whether insect herbivores are controlled largely by their host plant or by their natural enemies. I will test the relative strengths of these factors by using an intertidal study system of salt marsh plants and their associated herbivores. I will test whether the influence of both plants and natural enemies varies along a stress gradient, in this case a salinity gradient. The project should be interest to ecologists, agriculturalists, entomologists, and pest control workers. If natural enemies are not found to be important, or to be important only in certain habitats, then the value of biological control, using natural enemies, is brought into question and the value of plant resistance as a control technique is strengthened.