The dark side of herbivorous insects in Neotropical savannas: plant–herbivore networks across diurnal and nocturnal periods
- 1Laboratório de Interações Ecológicas E Biodiversidade, Programa de Pós-Graduação Em Biodiversidade E Uso Dos Recursos Naturais, Departamento de Biologia Geral, Centro de Ciências Biológicas E da Saúde, Universidade Estadual de Montes Claros, Montes Claros, MG Brazil
- 2Red de Ecoetología, Instituto de Ecología AC, Xalapa, Veracruz, Mexico
- 3Tecnología E Innovación, Laboratorio Nacional de Biología del Cambio Climático, Secretaría de Ciencia, HumanidadesMexico City, Mexico
Abstract
Herbivorous insects exhibit temporal plasticity in their activity, particularly under high diurnal stress, with many groups shifting to nighttime activity due to ecophysiological constraints. However, how their interaction organization changes across dsaily time periods remains poorly understood. We investigated structural patterns in plant–herbivore networks composed of free-living insects across diurnal, nocturnal, and complete (day + night) networks in Neotropical savannas. Additionally, we assessed changes in insect species richness, network turnover and rewiring, and species roles. Here, we sampled plant–herbivore interactions and constructed ecological networks, with interaction weights based on the abundance of herbivorous species recorded on sampled plants. Insect species richness was similar between nocturnal and complete networks, and both showed twice the richness observed in diurnal networks. Overall dissimilarity between diurnal and nocturnal networks was 67%, with 56% attributed to interaction rewiring and 43% to species turnover. Species roles shifted across periods: six species (including insects and plants) served as network hubs during the day, whereas five species were hubs at night, with only one insect and one plant species serving as hubs across periods. Nevertheless, all networks remained more specialized, modular, and weakly nested — as expected by chance — and maintained similar structures across periods. Our findings indicate that herbivorous insects in our sampled Neotropical savanna respond to diel changes, with nighttime representing an important period for their occurrence and interaction roles. However, the network structure remains robust to these changes, suggesting that species across periods may exhibit functional redundancy that maintains network structure.
Supplementary Information: The online version contains supplementary material available at https://doi.org/10.1007/s00442-026-05996-1.
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BibTeX
@article{souzaoliveira2026dark,
title = {{The dark side of herbivorous insects in Neotropical savannas: plant–herbivore networks across diurnal and nocturnal periods}},
author = {Jefferson Bruno B. Souza-Oliveira and Leonardo V. A. Costa and Wesley Dáttilo and Walter S. Araújo},
journal = {Oecologia},
year = {2026},
month = oct,
doi = {10.1007/s00442-026-05996-1},
url = {https://doi.org/10.1007/s00442-026-05996-1},
note = {CC BY 4.0},
}
RIS
TY - JOUR
TI - The dark side of herbivorous insects in Neotropical savannas: plant–herbivore networks across diurnal and nocturnal periods
AU - Jefferson Bruno B. Souza-Oliveira
AU - Leonardo V. A. Costa
AU - Wesley Dáttilo
AU - Walter S. Araújo
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/10/27
JO - Oecologia
DO - 10.1007/s00442-026-05996-1
UR - https://doi.org/10.1007/s00442-026-05996-1
AB - Herbivorous insects exhibit temporal plasticity in their activity, particularly under high diurnal stress, with many groups shifting to nighttime activity due to ecophysiological constraints. However, how their interaction organization changes across dsaily time periods remains poorly understood. We investigated structural patterns in plant–herbivore networks composed of free-living insects across diurnal, nocturnal, and complete (day + night) networks in Neotropical savannas. Additionally, we assessed changes in insect species richness, network turnover and rewiring, and species roles. Here, we sampled plant–herbivore interactions and constructed ecological networks, with interaction weights based on the abundance of herbivorous species recorded on sampled plants. Insect species richness was similar between nocturnal and complete networks, and both showed twice the richness observed in diurnal networks. Overall dissimilarity between diurnal and nocturnal networks was 67%, with 56% attributed to interaction rewiring and 43% to species turnover. Species roles shifted across periods: six species (including insects and plants) served as network hubs during the day, whereas five species were hubs at night, with only one insect and one plant species serving as hubs across periods. Nevertheless, all networks remained more specialized, modular, and weakly nested — as expected by chance — and maintained similar structures across periods. Our findings indicate that herbivorous insects in our sampled Neotropical savanna respond to diel changes, with nighttime representing an important period for their occurrence and interaction roles. However, the network structure remains robust to these changes, suggesting that species across periods may exhibit functional redundancy that maintains network structure. Supplementary Information: The online version contains supplementary material available at https://doi.org/10.1007/s00442-026-05996-1.
SN - 0029-8549
SN - 1432-1939
ER -