J Anim Ecol. 2010 Nov;79(6):1143-5. doi: 10.1111/j.1365-2656.2010.01763.x.
Plants and invertebrate herbivores are major constituents of terrestrial food webs. Identifying component species and tracing their interactions in highly diverse communities are a monumental task. Novotny et al. 2010 present the first broad conspectus of herbivore–plant interactions in a forest in Papua New Guinea. In more than 15 years, nearly 7000 feeding links were traced between about 200 plants and 1500 insect herbivores. Although staggering, these figures might represent only 15% of the total herbivore richness and interaction diversity in that lowland forest. Standardized comparisons also showed distinctive specialization and diversification patterns in different feeding guilds, restricting the possibility of using any single guild as surrogate for the entire assemblage.
植物和无脊椎草食动物是陆地食物网的主要组成部分。在高度多样化的群落中，确定组成物种并追踪它们的相互作用是一项艰巨的任务。Novotny 等人在 2010 年首次全面概述了巴布亚新几内亚森林中的草食动物与植物的相互作用。在 15 年多的时间里，近 7000 条食物链被追踪到大约 200 种植物和 1500 种昆虫草食动物之间。尽管这些数字令人震惊，但它们可能只代表那个低地森林中草食动物丰富度和相互作用多样性的 15%。标准化比较还显示出不同取食群体中独特的专业化和多样化模式，限制了使用任何单一群体作为整个集合替代物的可能性。
