Whitney R. Harris World Ecology Center

Robert J. Marquis

Robert J. MarquisRobert J. Marquis, Ph.D. University of Iowa

E-mail address: robert_marquis@umsl.edu
Telephone: (314) 516-6213
FAX: (314) 516-6233

Research Interests

The focus of my research is the ecology and evolution of plant resistance to herbivores.  I have begun to elucidate the factors which promote or constrain evolutionary changes in plant resistance at the population level.  Plant resistance to herbivores is a set of complex traits, some or all of which influence the impact of individual herbivore species on plant fitness.  However, almost every plant species interacts with a number of herbivore species, and in turn, those herbivore species are influenced by their own natural enemies.  Therefore, understanding the evolution of plant resistance requires in part a community-level approach.   Furthermore, interactions amongst herbivore species themselves, whether competitive or mutualistic, can be mediated through their use of the host plant as a resource.  The influence of plant traits on such interactions and on herbivore community structure, and their resultant impact on damage to the plant, are subjects of my current experimentation.  Thus, my research focuses on the interaction between host plant traits and the community of insects associated with the plant, their interactions with their natural enemies, and interactions amongst the herbivores themselves, all as they affect plant fitness components.

censusBecause herbivores are considered to be pests on economically important plant species, and because plant-herbivore interactions are often mediated by parasitoids and predators (such as birds), research in the area of plant-herbivore interactions often has direct application to management and conservation issues. Thus, when possible, I have designed my research to incorporate both basic and applied aspects of the questions under study.

 

 caterpillarPublications (last 5 years)
    • Wold, E. N., and R. J. Marquis. 1997. Induced responses to early-season herbivory in white oak: effects on late-season herbivores and benefits to the plant. Ecology 78:1356-1369.
    • Marquis, R. J., E. A. Newell, and A. C. Villegas. 1997. Non-structural carbohydrate accumulation and use in relation to reproduction and leaf herbivory in Piper arieianum (Piperaceae). Functional Ecology 11:636-643.
    • Gram, W. K., V. L. Sork, and R. J. Marquis. 1997. Synthesis and integration of pre-treatment results from the Missouri Ozark Forest Ecosystem Project. General Technical Report, USDA Forest Service, North Central Experiment Station, pp. 356-369.
    • Marquis, R. J., and C.J. Whelan. 1998. Experimental plant-animal interactions. In: Experimental Ecology: Issues and Perspectives, W.J. Resetarits, Jr., and J. Bernardo, Editors.  Oxford University Press, New York, pp. 416-436.
    • Le Corff, J., and R. J. Marquis. 1999. Difference between understory and canopy in herbivore community composition and leaf quality for two oak species in Missouri. Ecological Entomology 24:46-58
    • de la Fuente, M. A. S., and R. J. Marquis.  1999. The role of ant-tended extrafloral nectaries in the protection and benefit of a Neotropical rainforest tree. Oecologia 118:191-202.
    • Whitfield, J. B., R. J. Marquis, and J. Le Corff. 1999.  Host associations of braconid parasitoids (Hymenoptera: Braconidae) reared from Lepidoptera feeding on oaks (Quercus spp.) in the Missouri Ozarks.  Entomological News 110: 225-230.
    • Hochwender, C., R. J. Marquis, and K. Stowe. 2000. The potential for and constraints on the evolution of compensatory ability in Asclepias syriaca. Oecologia 122:361-370.
    • Mothershead, K. M., and R. J. Marquis. 2000. Indirect effects of leaf herbivores on plant-pollinator interactions in Oenothera macrocarpa (Onagraceae). Ecology 81:30-40.
    • Stowe, K. A., R. J. Marquis, C. Hochwender, and E. L. Simms. 2000. Plant tolerance to herbivory and disease. Annual Review of Ecology and Systematics 31: 565-595.
    • Le Corff, J., R. J. Marquis, and J. B. Whitfield. 2000. Temporal and spatial variation in a parasitoid community associated with the herbivores that feed on Missouri Quercus. Environmental Entomology 29:181-194.
    • Marquis, R. J., H. Morais, and I. Diniz. 2001. Patterns and correlates of interspecific leaf damage by insects and pathogens in Brazilian cerrado. Journal of Tropical Ecology 17:1-23.
    • Lill, J. T., and R. J. Marquis. 2001. The effects of leaf quality on herbivore fitness and attack from natural enemies. Oecologia 126:418-428.
    • Gram, W. K., V. L. Sork, R. J. Marquis, R. B. Renken, R. L. Clawson, J. Faaborg, D. K. Fantz,  J. Le Corff, J. T. Lill, and P. A. Porneluzi.  2001. Evaluating the effects of ecosystem management: a case study in a Missouri Ozark forest. Ecological Applications. 11:1667-1679.
    • Marquis, R. J., R. Forkner, J. T. Lill, and J. Le Corff. 2001. Impact of  timber harvesting on species accumulation curves for oak herbivore communities of the Missouri Ozarks. General Technical Report, USDA Forest Service, North Central Experiment Station, in press.
    • Lill, J. T., R. J. Marquis, and R. E. Ricklefs. 2002. Host plants influence parasitism of  forest caterpillars. Nature 417:170-173.
    • Marquis, R. J., J. T. Lill, and A. Puccinni.  2002. Effect of plant architecture on colonization and damage by leaf-tying caterpillars of Quercus alba (in press, Oikos).
    • Lill, J. T., and R. J. Marquis. 2002. Ecosystem engineering by caterpillars increases insect herbivore density on white oak (in press, Ecology).
    • Marquis, R. J., and R. Dirzo. 2002. Tropical Foundations in Coevolution. In: R. Chazdon and T. C. Whitmore (eds.). Foundations of tropical forest biology. Classic papers with commentaries, pp. 339-347. University of Chicago Press.
    • Marquis, R. J., H. Morais, and I. Diniz. 2002. Interactions between Cerrado plants and their herbivores: unique or typical? In: P. Oliveira and R. J. Marquis (eds.).  Ecology and natural history of a neotropical savanna: the cerrados of Brazil. Columbia Univ. Press. (in press).
    • Oliveira, P. S., and R. J. Marquis (eds.). 2002. Ecology and natural history of a neotropical savanna: The cerrados of Brazil. Columbia University Press. (in press).
  "THE MARQUIS LAB"
THE LAB

(Top from left to right)  Bob, Beatriz, Rebecca and Karina

(Bottom from left to right) Rodrigo, Grace, Kimberly and Alejandro

Current Graduate Students:
  • Karina Boege (Univ. Nacional Autonoma de Mexico), Ph.D.: “Direct and indirect effects of  induced plant resistance to herbivores and the third trophic level”

    • Publications:
    Thaler J.S., R. Karban, D. E. Ullman, K. Boege, and R. M. Bostock RM. 2002. Cross-talk between jasmonate and salicylate plant defense pathways: effects on several plant parasites. Oecologia.131:227-235.

  • Rodrigo Rios (Universidad Mayor de San Andres, La Paz, Bolivia), M.S.: “Population variation in traits associated with ant attraction in Chamaecrista fasciculata"
Publications:
    Rios-Aramayo, R., A. Loayza-Freire & D. M. Larrea. 2000. La importancia de los murcielagos como dispersores de semillas en Bosques Humedos Montanos. Andira 1: 3.

    Rios-Aramayo, R. & M. Jimenez. 2000. Do armored Scale Insects influence ant visits to Echinopsis chilensis. Revista Chilena de Entomologia 26: 81-84.

    Rios-Aramayo, R. & A. Loayza-Freire. 2000. Depredacion de semillas de Attalea phalerata (Palmae) por Bruquidos en islas de bosque de la Estacion Biologica Beni. Ecologia en Bolivia 34: 27-37.

    Loayza F. A. & R. Rios A. 1999. Caracteristicas del nectar y visitas de insectos a flores de Nicotiana glauca (Solanaceae): Asociadas a cambios de  la temperatura y humedad del ambiente? Ecologia en Bolivia 33: 51-61.

    Loayza F.A., R. Rios A. & C. Castillo T. 1999. Actividad alimenticia de Patagona gigas en arbustos de Nicotiana glauca (Solanaceae). Ecologia en  Bolivia 33: 75-79.

Kimberly Schultz (Indiana University), Ph.D.: “Effects of mycorrhizal fungi and insect herbivores on tree seedling establishment in tropical montane pastures”.
  • Grace Chen (National Chungkong University, Taiwan), M.S.: “Interactive effects of floral herbivores and ants on reproduction of Chamaecrista fasciculata”.
  • Beatriz Baker (Universidade de Brasilia), Ph.D.: “Effects of floral herbivory on plant fitness in Brazilian Cerrado”.
  • Alejandro Masís (Universidad de Costa Rica;  Kansas State University), M.S. "The Effects of Uneven-Aged and Even-Aged Timber Management Practices on the Species Diversity of Fruit-Feeding Butterflies in the Missouri Ozarks".

Postdoctoral Associate:

  • Dr. Rebecca Forkner (Univ. Georgia): Collaborative research: “Timber Harvesting Effects on the  Missouri Oak Herbivore Fauna Associated with the Missouri Ozark Forest Ecosystem Project (MOFEP)”

    Publications:

      Hartzfeld, P. W., R. Forkner, M. D. Hunter, and A. E. Hagerman. 2002. Determination of hydrolyzable tannins (gallotannins and ellagitannins) after reaction with potassium iodate. Journal of Agricultural & Food Chemistry. 50(7):1785-1790

      Marquis, R. J., R. Forkner, J. T. Lill, and J. Le Corff. 2001. Impact of  timber harvesting on species accumulation curves for oak herbivore communities of the Missouri Ozarks. General Technical Report, USDA Forest Service, North Central Experiment Station, in press.

      Forkner, R. E. and J. D. Hare. 2000. Genetic and environmental variation in acyl glucose ester production and glandular and nonglandular trichome densities in Datura wrightii Regel (Solanaceae). Journal of Chemical Ecology 26: 2801-2823.

      Forkner, R. E. and M. D. Hunter. 2000. What goes up must come down? Nutrient addition and predation pressure on oak herbivores. Ecology  81:1588-1600.

      Hunter, M. D., R. E. Forkner, and J. N. McNeil. Heterogeneity in plant quality and its impact on the population ecology of insect herbivores. In Ecological Consequences of Habitat Heterogeneity. Blackwell Scientific, Oxford.

      Hunter, M. D. and R. E. Forkner. 1999. Hurricane damage influences foliar phenolics and  subsequent herbivory on surviving trees. Ecology 80(8): 2676-2682.

      Hunter, M. D. and R. E. Forkner. 1999. Effects of abiotic disturbance on the foliar tannins  of Quercus rubra L. and subsequent defoliation by insect herbivores. In Diversity and Adaptation in Oak Species. Ed. K. C. Steiner. Pennsylvania State University Press.

Collaborative Research: “Timber Harvesting Effects on the Missouri Oak Herbivore Fauna Associated with the Missouri Ozark Forest Ecosystem Project (MOFEP)

    Project summary:

    In 1991, the Missouri Department of Conservation established a longterm (100 year) experiment to quantify the effects of alternative forest management regimens on the productivity and biodiversity of Missouri Ozark forests.  Located in the Current River watershed in southeastern Missouri, scientists representing various disciplines and foresters are studying the effects of forest thinning versus cutting small stands on vegetation diversity, tree growth, species diversity, and genetic diversity, oak masting,  and songbird, mammal, and reptile populations.

    Many of the individual studies have three years of pretreatment data, and now are in the third year of sampling subsequent to the first round of cutting, which took place in 1996.  Additional cuttings are planned at 10 year intervals.  The project and pretreatment results are described in Brookshire and Shifley (1997).

    The focus of this portion of MOFEP are the leaf-chewing insects that feed on black (Quercus velutina) and white oak (Q. alba) associated with MOFEP sites.  The overall goal is to establish the effects of timber harvesting on abundance and community composition of these herbivore faunas, both in the understory and in the canopy.  The specific goals of the project are fourfold: 1) describe, through intensive ground sampling, seasonal and geographical variation in abundance of the folivores of Q. alba and Q. velutina associated with MOFEP; 2) describe, through spot canopy sampling, seasonal and geographical variation in canopy insects numbers and species abundance on white and black oaks at all nine MOFEP sites; 3) estimate amount of leaf area consumed per insect species as a means of estimating leaf consumption; and 4) produce a pictorial key to the most abundant species of oak defoliators in the study areas (Marquis et al. in prep.).  Sampling occurs 4 times of the year, in all 9 MOFEP sites in the understory, and in 6 of 9 MOFEP sites in the canopy.

    Individually marked trees are censused, recording without removal the numbers of each herbivore species encountered. In addition to the determining the effects of the treatments themselves, this sampling is providing some of the first data available on the population dynamics so-called “non-outbreak species” of forest feeding insects.  Pretreatment results have been described (Marquis and Le Corff 1997). A description of the parasitoid community associated with this herbivore fauna is available (Whitfield et al. 1999, Le Corff et al. 2000), as is a quantitative description of differences in the herbivore fauna between the canopy and understory (Le Corff and Marquis 1999).  A collaboration is now in progress with John Faaborg (U. Missouri-Columbia), Rick Clausen (MDC), and Wendy Gram (UM-St. Louis) to correlate variation in songbird populations with those of their caterpillar prey, as estimated in our project.  A future experiment is planned in which I will manipulate access to caterpillars by birds using cages (Marquis and Whelan 1994) in both the canopy and understory in all three forest management treatments.  The goal is to determine whether treatment effects on bird populations can account for observed treatment effects on insect herbivore abundance on oak trees.

    Literature Cited

    Brookshire, B.L., and S.R. Shifley, Eds. Proceedings of the Missouri Ozark Forest Ecosystem  Project: an experimental approach to landscape research. Gen. Tech. Rep. NC-193. St.  Paul. MN.: U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service, North Central Forest  Experimental Station. 378 p.

    Le Corff, J., and R.J. Marquis. 1999. Difference between understorey and canopy in  herbivore  community composition and leaf quality for two oak species in Missouri. Ecological  Entomology 24:46-58

    Le Corff, J., R.J. Marquis, and J.B. Whitfield. 2000. Spatio-temporal variation in the  parasitoid  community of leaf-feeding Lepidoptera on Missouri oak (in press, Environmental  Entomology).

    Marquis, R.J., and C.J. Whelan. 1994. Insectivorous birds increase plant growth through  their  impact on herbivore communities of white oak. Ecology 75:2007-2014.

    Marquis, R.J., and J. Le Corff. 1997. Estimating pretreatment variation in the oak leaf- chewing  insect fauna of the Missouri Ozark Forest Ecosystem Project (MOFEP). General  Technical Report, USDA Forest Service, North Central Experiment Station, pp. 332- 346.

    Marquis, R.J., S. Passoa, J. Whitfield,  J. Le Corff, and V. Passoa. 1999. Field guide to  the  immature Lepidoptera of Missouri Ozark oaks. U.S. Forest Service Special  Publication. (in press).

    Whitfield, J. B., R. J. Marquis, and J. Le Corff. 1999.  Host associations of braconid  parasitoids  (Hymenoptera: Braconidae) reared from Lepidoptera feeding on oaks (Quercus  spp.)  in the Missouri Ozarks.  Entomological News 110: 225-230.