| The goal of this research was to understand the key processes shaping distributional patterns of a chrysomelid beetle which lives on different goldenrod species. This required investigating the interaction of individuals with each other and their host plants at different points in the beetle's life cycle and at various spatial scales.; Using cage and release experiments I explored how movement and oviposition behavior of females jointly determine the distribution of eggs on different host plants. A positive effect of the number of eggs on subsequent oviposition estimated in cage experiments allowed predicting the frequency distribution of egg counts per plant in the field.; Transplanting larvae I investigated how larvae on the same host plant influence each other's mortality. The results demonstrated that larvae which hatched from eggs on different leaves had a negative effect on each other but not larvae from the same leaf.; Abundance patterns on population level scale were generally consistent with the results of larval interaction. In addition, density dependence on population level was mainly due to larval interaction. Nevertheless, there was some evidence that density dependence among adults was important in fields with low percentage of host cover. |
