Community structure and interaction diversity in insect-plant assemblages

• Thomas M. Lewinsohn

Abstract
I propose to review various ways in which patterns, or structure, can be detected and estimated in association matrices of herbivorous insects and their host plants, at different spatial scales. Predicted and observed patterns can be linked to local and turnover, or alpha and beta, components of regional diversity; also, to food-web properties such as compartmentation or connectance. Analytical and statistical methods and their theoretical underpinnings are to be explored using an extensive data set of flowerhead-feeding insects associated with Brazilian Asteraceae. The proposed procedures are applicable to other data sets with information on associations among species, or of species with discrete and categorically distinct resource or habitat units. This approach can contribute to enrich biodiversity inventories by complementing more common estimates and analyses based on taxonomic surveys.