# Editorial: Changes in plant-herbivore interactions across time scales: bridging paleoecology and contemporary ecology

Benjamin Adroit, Mikhail V Kozlov, J. Manuel Robledo, Sandra R Schachat

<figure><img src="image_1.png" /></figure>

## To cite this version:

Benjamin Adroit, Mikhail V Kozlov, J. Manuel Robledo, Sandra R Schachat. Editorial: Changes in plant-herbivore interactions across time scales: bridging paleoecology and contemporary ecology. Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution, 2025, 12, 10.3389/fevo.2024.1539173. hal-04893019

HAL Id: hal-04893019

https://hal.science/hal-04893019v1

Submitted on 17 Jan 2025

HAL is a multi-disciplinary open access archive for the deposit and dissemination of scientific research documents, whether they are published or not. The documents may come from teaching and research institutions in France or abroad, or from public or private research centers.

L'archive ouverte pluridisciplinaire HAL, est destinée au dépôt et à la diffusion de documents scientifiques de niveau recherche, publiés ou non, émanant des établissements d'enseignement et de recherche français ou étrangers, des laboratoires publics ou privés.

<figure><img src="image_2.png" /></figure>

Distributed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License
<figure><img src="image_3.png" /></figure>

Check for updates

OPEN ACCESS

EDITED AND REVIEWED BY
Peter Convey,
British Antarctic Survey (BAS), United Kingdom

*CORRESPONDENCE
Benjamin Adroit

<figure><img src="image_4.png" /></figure>

benjamin.adroit@gmail.com

RECEIVED 03 December 2024

ACCEPTED 23 December 2024

PUBLISHED 08 January 2025

CITATION

Adroit B, Kozlov MV, Robledo JM and Schachat SR (2025) Editorial: Changes in plant-herbivore interactions across time scales: bridging paleoecology and contemporary ecology.

Front. Ecol. Evol. 12:1539173.

doi: 10.3389/fevo.2024.1539173

COPYRIGHT

© 2025 Adroit, Kozlov, Robledo and Schachat. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the [Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY)](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

# Editorial: Changes in plant-herbivore interactions across time scales: bridging paleoecology and contemporary ecology

Benjamin Adroit¹,²*, Mikhail V. Kozlov³, J. Manuel Robledo⁴,⁵ and Sandra R. Schachat⁶

¹ISEM, Univ Montpellier, CNRS, EPHE, IRD, Montpellier, France, ²Department of Palaeobiology, Swedish Museum of Natural History, Stockholm, Sweden, ³Department of Biology, University of Turku, Turku, Finland, ⁴CONICET, Centro de Ecología Aplicada del Litoral (CECOAL), Corrientes, Argentina, ⁵Universidad Nacional del Nordeste, Facultad de Ciencias Exactas y Naturales y Agrimensura, (FaCENA-UNNE), Corrientes, Argentina, ⁶Department of Plant and Environmental Protection Sciences, Entomology Section, The University of Hawaii, Honolulu, HI, United States

KEYWORDS

plant-insect interactions, herbivory, paleoecology, trophic structure, plant-insect association, ecosystem dynamic

## Editorial on the Research Topic

### Changes in plant-herbivore interactions across time scales: bridging paleoecology and contemporary ecology

Plants and arthropods predominate in terrestrial ecosystems, both in biodiversity and biomass (Bar-On et al., 2018). Their trophic interactions, primarily herbivory, have profoundly shaped terrestrial ecosystems, affecting evolutionary trajectories, ecosystem structures, and responses to environmental change. The fossil record provides key insights into long-term processes and large-scale patterns of arthropod (mainly insect) herbivory stretching back to early terrestrial ecosystems, such as the Silurian (~443-419 million years ago) and Devonian (~419-359 million years ago) (Labandeira and Wappler, 2023), despite limitations from temporal and spatial gaps and the need to deduce ecological patterns based on insect morphology, community composition, and plant damage caused by herbivores. Contemporary ecology, in contrast, allows for direct real-time observation and precise measurement of variables related to herbivory, though it lacks the expansive temporal scope.

Ideally, our understanding of plant-insect interactions would integrate insights from both ancient and modern ecosystems, spanning ecological (particularly macroecological) and evolutionary patterns across geologic timescales and present-day contexts, with implications for the future. The five manuscripts in this Research Topic contain a multitude of paleoecological insights that will interest specialists in both ancient and modern ecosystems.
Advances in paleoecology

A plurality of evidence of Paleozoic insect herbivory comes from the Permian of Texas. The frequency and richness of herbivory on Permian ferns and gymnosperms is lower than what we typically see in much younger, angiosperm-dominated deposits, but nevertheless varies considerably (Labandeira and Allen, 2007; Schachat et al., 2014). Dos Santos et al. break new ground with the first report of Permian herbivory that includes feeding event occurrences, an exceptionally finely resolved form of data (Xiao et al., 2022). Dos Santos et al. found a low proportion of herbivized surface area, as reported by Labandeira and Allen (2007) for another Permian assemblage, but high richness of damage types, as reported by Schachat et al. (2014). Dos Santos et al. have thus expanded the known “ecospace” occupied by herbivorous insects of the Permian, enriching our understanding of this period.

Turner et al. examine plant-insect interactions following the uniquely devastating Permian/Triassic extinction. They note a particularly sparse published record of these interactions, likely due to both the extinction's impact and the scarcity of fossil remains. Various fossil floras from the Triassic of Gondwana are documented in the scientific literature but there are few mentions of insect herbivory. Does this reflect a genuine near-absence of insect herbivory after the mass extinction event, or does the scientific literature simply not mention evidence of herbivory on fossil leaves from which other types of data were collected? Turner et al.'s contribution is particularly thought-provoking for the authors' clever use of original data to evaluate these two possibilities; the authors find that evidence of herbivory indeed appears to be under-reported.

Among the “big five” mass extinctions, insect herbivory across the Triassic/Jurassic extinction is even more poorly documented than for the Permian/Triassic extinction (Steinthorsdottir et al., 2015). Xu et al. present an analysis of insect herbivory immediately before and after the Triassic/Jurassic extinction, with data from hundreds of fossil leaves. Perhaps surprisingly, the authors find similar frequencies of damage types during the latest Triassic and earliest Jurassic, despite substantial turnover in the composition of plant communities in Sichuan Basin from which the Triassic and Jurassic fossil leaves were collected. This consistency in feeding behaviors across a major mass extinction mirrors the findings of Wappler et al. (2009) from the Cretaceous/Paleogene.

Santos et al. focus on the mid-Cretaceous El Chango Lagerstätte from Mexico. Studies of herbivory as far back as the Paleozoic have, unsurprisingly, found far more feeding damage on broadleaf foliage than on small, needle-like leaves—leading to an explicit suggestion to limit comparisons of herbivory among taxa and assemblages to broadleaf foliage only (Schachat et al., 2018). This preference for broad-leaved plants is also evident in contemporary studies of insect herbivory. Despite the significant ecological and economic importance of conifers and their dominance in certain ecosystems, only 0.38% (Kozlov et al., 2015) to 1.8% (Turcotte et al., 2014) of published data on insect herbivory levels have been derived from studies on coniferous plants. Indeed, Santos et al. found that herbivores preferred broadleaf foliage at El Chango. The needle-leaved taxa at El Chango are gymnosperms and the

broadleaf taxa are angiosperms, which highlights the need to account for vegetation traits, including but not limited to leaf shape, when evaluating major evolutionary transitions such as the rise of angiosperms. Similarly, in contemporary boreal forests, broadleaved woody angiosperms experienced, on average, five-fold higher herbivory than needle-leaved gymnosperm (coniferous) trees (Zvereva et al., 2020).

Boyce explores the role of nutrient constraints in herbivore adaptation, with high carbon-to-nitrogen ratios in land plants shaping invertebrate feeding strategies. This study demonstrates the benefits of integrating paleoecological and modern data: studies of fresh plant material have allowed a detailed understanding of where plants store carbon, and studies of fossils have shown that the oldest herbivores are those that can most easily avoid the highest concentrations of carbon in plant material. Whereas most studies of herbivory in the fossil record necessarily have a biomechanical focus, based on the leaf damage that an animal was physically capable of creating, Boyce's study provides a new lens through which the biochemical considerations that pervade the literature on modern herbivory can be integrated into paleontological analyses.

Missed expectations

Despite efforts to integrate contemporary and paleoecological perspectives in this Research Topic, we faced two main challenges. First, none of the scientists specializing in contemporary herbivory accepted our invitation to contribute. Second, paleontological manuscripts use different vocabulary and methodologies than those commonly used in contemporary studies, potentially making this Research Topic less accessible to ecologists focused on present-day systems.

These challenges are further exacerbated by systemic barriers. Fossil data often lack the resolution needed for direct comparisons with modern datasets, as damage on fossilized leaves cannot usually be attributed to specific taxa (Labandeira et al., 2007). The hundreds of known insect damage types provide only a coarse view of herbivore diversity compared to the vast number of extant herbivorous insect species (Bar-On et al., 2018), and many distantly related taxa can induce similar damage types (e.g., Carvalho et al., 2014), complicating comparative analyses. Moreover, while the diversity of leaf damage types has been central to paleoecological research for decades (Labandeira and Wappler, 2023), contemporary studies have largely overlooked this variable (but see Adams et al., 2011; Bachelot and Kobe, 2013). Factors influencing the composition and richness of plant damage types in modern ecosystems remain poorly understood, limiting our ability to align spatial and temporal patterns in herbivory with herbivore identities.

Future directions

Rather than chasing the dream of apples-to-apples comparisons of modern and fossil datasets, an explicitly hypothesis-driven framework can better unify these fields. Theoretical advances and
the rich datasets presented in this Research Topic illustrate how our
discipline can transition from a correlational approach—focused on
apparent increases in herbivory during periods of climate change or
extinction events—to rigorous hypothesis testing. This shift will not
only make paleontological findings more compelling but also enable
scientists from both fields to better predict the resilience of
terrestrial food webs in the face of anthropogenic change.
Bridging paleoecology and contemporary ecology in plant-
herbivore studies will require continued collaboration, mutual
openness, and a commitment to methodological rigor. Achieving
this goal remains challenging but is essential for a more integrated
understanding of plant-herbivore dynamics across temporal scales.

Author contributions

BA: Conceptualization, Supervision, Writing – original draft, Writing – review & editing. MK: Conceptualization, Writing – review & editing. JR: Conceptualization, Writing – review & editing. SS: Conceptualization, Writing – review & editing.

Funding

The author(s) declare that financial support was received for the
research, authorship, and/or publication of this article. This work

was supported by the Research Council of Finland grant 362731 to
MK and by the Carl Tryggers Stiftelse (grant number CTS 21: 1585)
to BA.

Acknowledgments

We wish to thank all authors of this Research Topic for making
this a success, and the Frontiers in Ecology & Evolution editorial
and support teams for their patience and advice.

Conflict of interest

The authors declare that the research was conducted in the
absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be
construed as a potential conflict of interest.

Publisher's note

All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors
and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations,
or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product
that may be evaluated in this article, or claim that may be made by its
manufacturer, is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.

References

Adams, J. M., Ahn, S., Ainuddin, N., and Lee, M.-L. (2011). A further test of a Palaeoecological Thermometer: tropical rainforests have more herbivore damage diversity than temperate forests. *Rev. Palaeobotany Palynology* 164, 60–66. doi: 10.1016/j.revpalbo.2010.11.005

Bachelot, B., and Kobe, R. K. (2013). Rare species advantage? Richness of damage types due to natural enemies increases with species abundance in a Wet Tropical Forest. Edited by Peter Vesk. *J. Ecol.* 101, 846–856. doi: 10.1111/1365-2745.12094

Bar-On, Y. M., Phillips, R., and Milo, R. (2018). The biomass distribution on Earth. *Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.* 115, 6506–6511. doi: 10.1073/pnas.1711842115

Carvalho, M. R., Wilf, P., Barrios, H., Windsor, D. M., Currano, E. D., Labandeira, C. C., et al. (2014). Insect leaf-chewing damage tracks herbivore richness in modern and ancient forests. *PloS One* 9, e94950. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0094950

Kozlov, M. V., Lanta, V., Zverev, V., and Zvereva, E. L. (2015). Global patterns in background losses of woody plant foliage to insects. *Global Ecol. Biogeography* 24, 1126–1135. doi: 10.1111/geb.12347

Labandeira, C. C., and Allen, E. G. (2007). Minimal insect herbivory for the Lower Permian Coprolite Bone Bed site of north-central Texas USA, and comparison to other Late Paleozoic floras. *Palaeogeography Palaeoclimatology Palaeoecology*. 247, 197–219. doi: 10.1016/j.palaeo.2006.10.015

Labandeira, C. C., and Wappler, T. (2023). Arthropod and pathogen damage on fossil and modern plants: Exploring the origins and evolution of herbivory on land. *Annu. Rev. Entomology* 68, 341–361. doi: 10.1146/annurev-ento-120120-102849

Labandeira, C. C., Wilf, P., Johnson, K. R., and Marsh, F. (2007). Guide to insect (and other) damage types on compressed plant fossils (Washington, D. C: Smithsonian Institution).

Schachat, S., Labandeira, C. C., Gordon, J., Chaney, D. S., Levi, S., Halthore, M. N., et al. (2014). Plant–insect interactions from early Permian (Kungurian) Colwell Creek Pond, north-central Texas: The early spread of herbivory in riparian environments. *Int. J. Plant Sci.* 175, 855–890. doi: 10.1086/677679

Schachat, S. R., Labandeira, C. C., and Maccracken, S. A. (2018). The importance of sampling standardization for comparisons of insect herbivory in deep time: a case study from the late Palaeozoic. *R. Soc. Open Sci.* 5, 171991. doi: 10.1098/rsos.171991

Steinthorsdottir, M., Tosolini, A. M. P., and McElwain, J. C. (2015). Evidence for insect and annelid activity across the Triassic–Jurassic transition of east Greenland. *PALAIOS* 30, 597–607. doi: 10.2110/palo.2014.093

Turcotte, M. M., Davies, T. J., Thomsen, C. J. M., and Johnson, M. T. J. (2014). Macroecological and macroevolutionary patterns of leaf herbivory across vascular plants. *Proc. R. Soc. B: Biol. Sci.* 281, 20140555. doi: 10.1098/rspb.2014.0555

Wappler, T., Currano, E. D., Wilf, P., Rust, J., and Labandeira, C. C. (2009). No post-Cretaceous ecosystem depression in European forests? Rich insect-feeding damage on diverse middle Palaeocene plants, Menat, France. *Proc. R. Soc. B: Biol. Sci.* 276, 4271–4277. doi: 10.1098/rspb.2009.1255

Xiao, L., Labandeira, C. C., and Ren, D. (2022). Insect herbivory immediately before the eclipse of the gymnosperms. *Insect Science*. 29, 1483–1520. doi: 10.1111/1744-7917.12988

Zvereva, E. L., Zverev, V., Usoltsev, V. A., and Kozlov, M. V. (2020). Latitudinal pattern in community-wide herbivory does not match the pattern in herbivory averaged across common plant species. *J. Ecol.* 108, 2021–2036. doi: 10.1111/1365-2745.13438