Tritrophic niches of insect herbivores in an era of rapid environmental change.

A multi-trophic perspective improves understanding of the ecological and evolutionary consequences of rapid environmental change on insect herbivores. Loss of specialized enemies due to human impacts is predicted to dramatically reduce the number of tritrophic niches of herbivores compared to a bitrophic niche perspective. Habitat fragmentation and climate change promote the loss of both specialist enemies and herbivores, favoring ecological generalism across trophic levels. Species invasion can fundamentally alter trophic interactions toward various outcomes and contributes to ecological homogenization. Adaptive evolution on ecological timescales is expected to dampen tritrophic instabilities and diversify niches, yet its ability to compensate for tritrophic niche losses in the short term is unclear.