Identifying consumer functional traits and understanding their role in structuring community diversity

The role of functional traits in structuring communities and influencing ecosystem processes has been of increasing interest in recent years. Previous research has focused primarily on plant functional traits but often neglect the role of consumer traits. Integrating the role of consumer functional traits into community ecology could provide insight into the underlying mechanisms that structure diversity at multiple trophic levels. In this study, we first aim to identify how several functional traits of grasshopper species are correlated and whether species differentiate along major functional trait axes. We surveyed grasshopper species in longleaf pine savannahs and measured various functional traits related to life history, nutrient acquisition, and dispersal. Second, we aim to determine which grasshopper functional traits are important for effecting plant community composition and productivity using mesocosm experiments. Nine native plant species were propagated in each mesocosm, categorized by their traits as either acquisitive or conservative plants. One of eight grasshopper species were introduced into each mesocosm, with control mesocosms having no herbivores present. We found that grasshoppers were categorized by their traits as either acquisitive, represented by larger sizes and faster growth/consumption rates, or conservative species, represented by smaller sizes and slower growth/consumption rates. We found that acquisitive plant species are more likely to support communities of acquisitive grasshoppers, whereas conservative plant species are more likely to support communities of conservative grasshoppers. Knowing how plant and herbivore traits are linked in a community can shed light on how biodiversity is structured at multiple trophic levels.