Rainforest adult leaf chewers from Madang Province, Papua New Guinea

Study Extent

Fieldwork was carried out in primary and secondary lowland forests near Baitabag, Ohu and Mis Villages, and in a coastal area near Riwo village. The leaf-chewing insects on Ficus were collected from July 1994 to March 1996 and on Euphorbiaceae from August 1996 to August 1997.

Sampling

All externally feeding leaf-chewing insects (Orthoptera, Phasmatodea, Coleoptera), were collected individually, by hand or by the use of an aspirator, from the foliage. This included both adults and larval stages. All 15 confamilial tree species were sampled simultaneously, for a period of at least one year. Insects on Ficus were collected from July 1994 to March 1996 and on Euphorbiaceae from August 1996 to August 1997. Collecting effort was recorded as the time spent surveying the foliage of each of the tree species studied, which was approximately proportional to the leaf area examined. The number of tree inspections, i.e. a particular tree sampled at a particular time, was also recorded. For leaf-chewing insects, collecting effort varied from 22.9 to 25.6 h (average 24.7 h per species) on the Ficus hosts, and it was exactly 24.7 h per species on the Euphorbiaceae. In addition to regular sampling of all hosts, an exhaustive census of all sap-sucking insects from 191 individuals of Ficus phaeosyce was carried out at a single sampling site (Baitabag). The nearly complete sampling of the whole community was feasible since F. phaeosyce is a small understorey shrub. Overall, these sampling protocols involved approximately 950 person days of fieldwork and 25152 tree inspections. Note- This study also used a dataset comprising Lepidoptera which is presented separately here xxx add DOI"

Method steps

1. Full details can be found- Novotný, V. and Basset, Y., 2000. Rare species in communities of tropical insect herbivores: pondering the mystery of singletons. Oikos, 89(3), pp.564-572.

This dataset comprises leaf chewing herbivores, specifically members of the orders Orthoptera, Coleoptera & Phasmida.

1. Orthoptera
   rank: order
2. Coleoptera
   rank: order
3. Phasmida
   rank: order

Data were gathered from the lowland forest in Madang Province in PNG, extending from the coast to the slopes of the Adelbert Mts. Fieldwork was concentrated in primary and secondary lowland forests near Baitabag, Ohu and Mis Villages, and in a coastal area near Riwo village.