b a ckground: west nile virus (wnv) and rift valley fever virus (rvfv) are mosquito-borne viral diseases. the objective of this study was to investigate the rvfv and wnv infections as serologically in different mammalian species (cattle, horse, goat, sheep and water buffalo) in the northern turkey. m e t hods: blood samples randomly collected from 70 each cattle, horse, sheep, goat and water bu...

Induced plant resistance may contribute to regulating or driving fluctuations in insect herbivore populations. However, experimental demonstrations of induced resistance affecting long-term herbivore population dynamics are lacking, and few models find that induced resistance drives cycles in herbivore populations. Here a simulation model is used to explore the influence of characteristics of t...

Predicting herbivore control over plants (i.e. changes in plant mass due to herbivore damage) is a central goal of ecology. Progress has been limited, however, because the vegetation characteristics thought to influence herbivore control are naturally correlated and typically experimentally confounded. To address this problem, we defined eight conventional models that predict herbivore control ...

Empirical results indicate that inducible defenses of plants have effects on herbivore populations. However, little is known about how inducible defenses of plants have influences on herbivore outbreak when space effect is considered. To reveal the relationship between inducible defenses and herbivore outbreak, we present a mathematical model to describe the interaction of them. It was found th...

Defense-free space resulting from coevolutionarily naïve host plants recently has been implicated as a factor facilitating invasion success of some insect species. Host plants, however, may not be entirely defenseless against novel herbivore threats. Volatile chemical-mediated defense signaling, which allows plants to mount specific, rapid, and intense responses, may play a role in systems expe...

Many herbivore populations fluctuate temporally, but the causes of those fluctuations remain unclear. Plant inducible resistance can theoretically cause herbivore population fluctuations, because herbivory may induce plant changes that reduce the survival or reproduction of later-feeding herbivores. Herbivory can also simply reduce the quantity of food available for later feeders and this, too,...

High-latitude plants are often more palatable to herbivores than low-latitude conspecifics. Does increased plant palatability lead to better herbivore performance? Our field and laboratory work investigated (A) whether high-latitude plants have traits indicating that they should be higher-quality foods for herbivores; (B) whether geographic differences in plant quality are more important than l...

Research investigating interactions between aboveground (AG) and below-ground (BG) herbivores has been central to characterizing AG-BG linkages in terrestrial ecosystems, with many of these interactions forming the basis of complex food webs spanning the two subsystems. Despite the growing literature on the effects of AG and BG herbivores on each other, underlying patterns have been difficult t...

Invasive herbivores are often managed to limit their negative impact on plant populations, but herbivore density - plant damage relationships are notoriously spatially and temporally variable. Site and species characteristics (both plant and herbivore) must be considered when assessing the potential for herbivore damage, making it difficult to set thresholds for efficient management. Using the ...

1. Plants are frequently under attack by multiple insect herbivores, which may interact indirectly through herbivore-induced changes in the plant's phenotype. The identity, order, and timing of herbivore arrivals may influence the outcome of interactions between two herbivores. How these aspects affect, in turn, subsequently arriving herbivores that feed on double herbivore-induced plants has n...