Herbivory Trends on Purple Loosestrife from 1883 to 2015 in Southern Québec

Southern Québec provides the geographic scope for 1,323 herbarium specimens of purple loosestrife (Lythrum salicaria) used to reconstruct long-term insect herbivory pressure. The data, created by researchers Beaulieu, Lavoie, and Proulx in 2018, tracks leaf damage types over more than a century. Historical trends suggest a gradual increase in certain damages until around 1940, with a notable rise in window feeding from 3% in 1990 to 45% in 2015.

Use Cases

• Analyzing temporal trends in hole feeding and margin feeding damages based on the described historical patterns from 1883 to 1940.
• Investigating the hypothesis of increasing herbivory pressure from recently introduced insects based on the frequency of window feeding damages.
• Assessing the impact of biocontrol agents like Neogalerucella beetles on an invasive plant based on leaf damage evaluation from voucher specimens.
• Evaluating the utility of herbarium collections for answering questions related to biodiversity changes over long time scales.

Strengths

• Includes 1,323 specimens, providing a substantial sample for analysis.
• Covers a long temporal range from 1883 to 2015, enabling century-scale trend detection.
• Contains specific, quantified damage trends, such as window feeding increasing from 3% to 45% between 1990 and 2015.

Limitations

• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• Row count for the underlying structured data is unknown, which may limit suitability assessment.
• Data may reflect geographic bias inherent to the collection from southern Québec, Canada.

Provenance

Source

Beaulieu C, Lavoie C, Proulx R. 2018. Study based on herbarium specimens.

Collection Method

Evaluation of leaf damages on preserved plant specimens.

Time Range

1883 to 2015

Geography

Southern Québec, Canada