APPENDIX A. Damage to Piper leaves – a summary and key
The herbivores most commonly found feeding on Piper ant plants at our study sites in
Sarapiqui, Heredia, Costa Rica include specialist lepidopterans and coleopterans and generalist
lepidopterans, orthopterans, and ants. The main specialists (i.e. only eat Piper) that eat leaf
tissue are geometrid moth larvae (Lepidoptera: Geometridae: Eois spp.), skippers (Lepidoptera:
Hesperiidae: Quadrus cerealis), weevils (Coleoptera: Curculionidae: Ambates spp.), and at
least 10 species of flea beetles (Coleoptera: Chrysomelidae: Physimera spp.) Feeding damage
from generalist herbivores (i.e. eat plants in multiple families), includes leafcutter ants
(Hymenoptera: Formicidae: Atta cephalotes), orthopterans (Orthoptera: Tetigoniidae,
Acrididae: Microtylopteryx hebardi, and Eumasticidae: Homeomastax robertsi), and moth
larvae (Apatelodidae, Arctiidae, Limacodidae, Pyralidae, Saturniidae, Tortricidae, Thyrididae).
The generalist caterpillars on Piper have very broad diet breadths and as a group have been
found and reared on a total of 249 genera in 98 plant families.
KEY
1a. Damage is on the leaf margin.
1b. Damage is away from leaf margin as holes, windows without
green tissue, or internal damage.
2
6
2a. Damage consists of smooth cuts.
2b. Damage consists of cuts that have ragged, uneven edges.
3
Generalist
lepidopterans.
Damage in this image
is from Tarchon felderi
(Apatelodidae)
3a. Damage does not include folds or rolls and consists of short or 4
long, smooth cuts that may extend all the way the mid vein or
may be limited to areas close to the leaf margin.
3b. Damage includes folded or rolled sections of the leaf.
5
4a. Damage consists of smooth and regular partial circles, about
1cm in diameter. Often all tissue is missing except mid vein.
Atta cephalotes
(Formicidae)
Generalist orthopterans
4b. Damage consists of smooth cuts that are either shallow or
deep, but are always confined to the leaf margin. Cuts are not
repeated as in A. cephalotes (4a) and are usually limited to 1-4
individual cuts.
5a. Leaf is folded. The fold varies in size, depending on the instar
of the damaging caterpillar, but the fold contains dozens of
very small (ca 1 mm) holes on both upper and under side of
the leaf.
Quadrus cerealis
(Hesperiidae)
5b. Leaf is folded but not as above (rare).
5c. Leaf is rolled.
Other Hesperiidae
Pyralidae; Tortricidae;
Thyrididae
6a
6b
Damage consists of holes or windows in the leaf.
Damage is typical of leaf miners.
7
Coleoptera;
Lepidoptera
6c
Damage is typical of galls.
7a
Damage consists of ragged holes that vary in size and often
include clear windows of leaf tissue. Damage can be localized
or can approach complete skeletonization of the leaf.
Hemiptera;
Hymenoptera; Diptera
Eois spp.
(Geometridae)
7b
Damage consists of smooth, small to medium-sized holes that
can occur singly or (more often) all over the leaf.
Physimera
(Chrysomelidae);
Ambates
(Curculionidae)