How much leaf area do insects eat? Patterns of herbivory and florivory in tropical plants and the importance of foliar and floral traits

 Insect herbivory, although ubiquitous, remains largely undocumented for tropical plants, which are host to more and sometimes more specialized herbivores, which might inflict higher damage. We reviewed the evidence for levels of herbivory for tropical plants over the past 25 years and also sampled data using a standardized protocol to evaluate herbivory and florivory levels for common tree species in vegetation worldwideEvaluation of 209 plant species distributed into 65 botanical families indicated that insect herbivores removed approximately 8% (8.18 ± 1.32%) of leaf area and herbivory is higher for forest plants compared to open vegetation in the tropics and it is influenced by phylogeny and leaf traits, such as size and specific leaf area. We also provide a conceptual framework synthesizing knowledge on florivory and the first global estimates of florivory incidence and floral area removed by florivores across biogeographic regions, taxa and functional groups. Our survey using published and field data collection showed higher florivory in tropical plant species, despite significant geographic and phylogenetic biases. Caterpillars were the most common florivores mainly chewing petals of purple and yellow flowers of shrubby species, removing around 8% of floral area. Our study shows that florivory impacts plant fitness through multiple pathways and that ignoring this interaction hampers a broad understanding on the ecology and evolution of angiosperm flowers. We hope to bring attention to herbivory and florivory as key topics of research in the Anthropocene.