Variação da herbivoria foliar na vegetação lenhosa em uma área de cerrado stricto sensu

Abstract

Insect herbivory has been a fundamental ecological interaction for energy flow in ecosystems, but its spatio-temporal variation and the contribution of different functional guilds remain poorly understood in tropical savannas. This study aimed to quantify cumulative foliar herbivory in the woody component of a cerrado sensu stricto area at the Panga Ecological Reserve (Uberlândia, MG). Young leaves from the ten most abundant species across 12 plots were marked in August and September 2023, monitored, and collected after 180 days (March and April 2024). A total of 1,227 leaves from 36 species were analyzed. Total herbivory showed a mean of 15.16% and a median of 1.60%, revealing an asymmetric distribution where 19.5% of the leaves suffered no damage and the majority were concentrated between 0% and 5% of removed area. The probability of damage occurrence was high (~80%) for most species, but the intensity varied significantly among hosts. There was no significant spatial variation among plots. Chewing insects predominated in both periods (~40% of the damage). However, a temporal transition was observed in the functional profile of the guilds: scrapers reduced their contribution from the first to the second collection (from 30.8% to 15.5%), while sap-suckers increased significantly (from 9.6% to 26.9%), coinciding with the period of leaf flushing. Foliar herbivory in the studied community was widespread in occurrence but limited in intensity, with severe consumption concentrated on a few susceptible hosts, supporting the host-selection hypothesis. Furthermore, guild dynamics responded directly to leaf phenology over time, demonstrating the temporal complexity of plantinsect interactions in the Savanna Neotropical.