Asking the pikas politely…
Plants are consumed by a variety of insect herbivores. These herbivores vary in abundance from place to place and over time. The purpose of this project is to monitor the abundance and phenology of insects and other arthropods on the focal plant Ligusticum porteri. The primary herbivore of interests are aphids, which colonize host plant flowering stalks. Since 2017, we have conducted weekly censuses at twenty sites along an elevation gradient. These different sites provide varying combinations of temperature and snow melt timing, which we also monitor. We use these data to assess associations between herbivore abundance and the biotic and abiotic factors that vary among sites and study years. These associations provide insights into the impacts of climate change on plant-herbivore interactions.