What is it about?
The first detailed description of the life history and ecology of the tropical treehopper Ennya maculicornis. Females of this species present particular features: they can lay 1, 2 or 3 egg masses, and also they present maternal care (protection of their offspring), a trait that vary a lot in duration. Here we studied the demography of these species in Bolivia, among the description of this insect's life cycle and interactions.
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Why is it important?
This is the first demographic work performed on treehoppers, on a very peculiar species in terms of maternal care and oviposition traits. All data was gathered in the field and cohorts of insects where followed for several months. This study improves our understanding on tropical treehopper's ecology and population dynamics, which are a cosmopolitan group of phythophagous insects.
Perspectives
To the best of my knowledge this is one of the very few papers (if not unique) that applied demographic matrix-models to wild insect population ecological studies. This is a technique mostly use in vertebrate management and conservation but it can also be applied to ecological field studies, particularly on phytophagous insect systems.
Daniel Torrico-Bazoberry
Universidad de Chile
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Biology, ecology and demography of the tropical treehopper Ennya maculicornis
(Hemiptera: Membracidae): relationships between female fitness, maternal care and oviposition sites, Ecological Entomology, May 2017, Wiley,
DOI: 10.1111/een.12410.
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